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HARPER and BARD 



TREE OF KNOWLEDGE 

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 



Percy Holmes Boynton 

THE CHALLENGE OF MODERN CRITICISM 

Tom Peete Cross 

HARPER AND BARD 

Robert Morss Lovett 

PREFACE TO FICTION 

Adolf Carl Noe 

FERNS, FOSSILS AND FUEL 

Louise Marie Spaeth 

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE AMONG STRANGE PEOPLES 

James Westfall Thompson 

THE LIVING PAST 












TOM PEETE CROSS 

i« 

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 


HARPER AND BARD 


THE BEAUTIES OF IRISH LITERATURE 

/ 



THOMAS S. ROCKWELL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 1931 CHICAGO 

x.a e °P/ 


X 



COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY 
THOMAS S. ROCKWELL COMPANY 
CHICAGO 


/ 



Printed in United States of America 


MAY 22 1931* ^ 

©CIA 38360 z) 


CONTENTS 


ONE 

The Kinsmen of Ith 

9 

TWO 

The Story-Tellers 

19 

THREE 

The Mythological Cycle 

29 

FOUR 

The Cu Chullin Cycle 
60 

FIVE 

The Ossianic Cycle 

101 








ONE 


THE KINSMEN OF ITH 

“For good is the land which ye inhabit; 
plenteous her harvest, her honey, her fishing, 
her wheat, and her other yieldings; moderate are 
her heat and her cold; within her borders are all 
things that ye need ” 

T HIS gracious speech about Ireland was made by 
a chieftain from Spain named Ith. He had seen 
Ireland from a tall tower built on the northern coast of 
Spain, and had journeyed there to look the land over. 
The inhabitants of Ireland at that time were called the 
Tuatha De Danann. They received Ith kindly, but when 
he said how beautiful he thought their country was, they 
killed him, for they were afraid that he would go back 
to Spain and persuade his friends to invade Ireland. 

Ith’s friends and relatives were angry at the murder 
of their chief and came to Ireland to avenge him. They 
took away the island from the Tuatha De Danann, who 
vanished into the great earth mounds scattered over 


9 



HARPER AND BARD 


Ireland, and became the fairy folk so familiar in Irish 
song and story. From these mounds they came forth 
at times to take part in the affairs of mortal men. 

This is the legend the Irish tell to account for the 
coming of the Celts to Ireland. These Celtic invaders 
were descendants of a great race that four hundred years 
before the birth of Christ had stretched across the whole 
of Europe. Several centuries before Christ some of them 
emigrated to England and Ireland. In England the 
Saxons drove them into Wales, where the original Celtic 
language, in the form of Welsh, is still spoken. They 
were not disturbed in Ireland, and their descendants live 
there now. Another branch of the race settled in 
Galatia in Asia Minor. 

It is almost impossible to separate Celtic legend and 
tradition from actual history. However, back of the 
legend is more than a grain of truth. Modern scholars 
believe that the original inhabitants of Ireland actually 
did come from Spain. One reason for this belief is that 
the stone tools found in Ireland are like those of the 
same period found in Spain. 

In fact, the Celts probably were drawn to Ireland by 
rumors of gold to be found there. They came to the 
southeast coast, near the gold fields in the present county 
of Wicklow. The gold was very nearly gone when they 
10 



THE KINSMEN OF ITH 


arrived, but they remained to raise cattle. It is probable 
that they did not all come at once, and that they were of 
different tribes. They scattered to the north and west of 
the island, where they established little kingdoms, each 
with its own king. Every three years a great religious 
assembly provided a bond of union; they spoke the same 
language; and probably had the same religion and 
racial customs. 

The races that preceded the Celts in Ireland have been 
called Pre-Celtic. According to Irish mythology there 
were four invasions before the relatives of Ith came to 
revenge his death. The first invasion was made by the 
followers of Partholon. Then came the Nemedians, the 
Fir Bolg, and the Tuatha De Danann. In mythology 
the Celts are called the Milesians because they were led 
by the sons of Mil, who was a grandson of Ith. There 
was also a race of monstrous pirates called the Fomorians, 
who lived in the islands of the north and harassed the 
settlers. The tales of the mythological cycle tell about 
these five races and their struggles for Ireland. The 
Cu Chullin and the Ossianic cycles are also composed 
of stories about the Celts, but of a later time. 

It is customary to divide the time before recorded 
history into four ages according to the kinds of imple¬ 
ments men used. The first is the Stone Age. It goes 


II 



HARPER AND BARD 


back into the mists of time when men used rough chipped 
flints for tools. The second is the Copper Age, when 
men had discovered how to melt copper out of the ore 
and how to shape it into weapons. In the third, the 
Bronze Age, men learned to mix copper and tin to make 
bronze. The fourth, the Iron Age, has continued down 
to the present time. The Celts had advanced as far as 
the Iron Age when they came to Ireland. 

The Stone Age is divided into two periods, the Old 
Stone Age and the New Stone Age. In the Old Stone 
Age the tools were rough and unfinished; in the New 
Stone Age the stone implements were polished. The first 
settlers of Ireland were New Stone people. They have 
left very few traces behind them, but we know that they 
lived on the northeast coast, where the large supplies of 
flint were. There is nothing to tell where they came from. 
Apparently not from Scotland, although that is the nearest 
country, because their tools are not like those left during 
the same period in Scotland. Possibly they came from 
Denmark, or from England. The mythology of Ireland 
insists on tracing all of the early settlers, both Celtic and 
Pre-Celtic, to Spain. 

When the earliest Pre-Celtic settlers came to Ireland, 
about 7000 B. C., they found a country covered with 
heavy forests of oak and pine. The climate was moister 


12 



THE KINSMEN OF ITH 


than it is now, rains more frequent, and the rivers larger 
and swifter in consequence. Dangerous swamps dotted 
the forests. Packs of large, fierce wolves roamed in the 
woods. A few of the great Irish elk, with antlers fourteen 
feet from tip to tip, ate the grass in the swamps. Wild 
boars of tremendous size and ferocity lived in the thick 
underbrush, and there were bears prowling about the edges 
of the forests. The earliest comers stayed close to the 
shore and ate shellfish and such small game as they could 
catch in primitive snares. They made boats of hides 
stretched over a wooden frame and sailed far out to sea 
and caught the deep-sea fish whose bones have been found 
in the shell heaps. 

In time they ventured up the rivers to make homes on 
the open hillsides. They became traders in very early 
times. Sailors from France and Spain brought them 
copper and bronze weapons and took back gold from the 
Wicklow valleys. With these better implements they 
could cut down trees and kill wolves and bears, so that 
they ventured farther inland and began to raise cattle 
and sheep and pigs. The coast dwellers had lived in 
the open, but the Bronze Age herders built themselves 
houses of logs. No trace of these wooden houses is left, 
but descriptions of them are found in early Irish literature. 
A favorite method of getting rid of an enemy was to 


13 



HARPER AND BARD 


shut him in his house and burn it down around him. 
In various places in Ireland, banks of earth still remain 
to show where forts were built, probably more for the 
protection of the cattle against wolves than for safety 
from a human foe. 

Although the Pre-Celtic tribes were widely separated 
by forests, rivers, and swamps, they spoke the same 
language and had the same religion. Society was organ¬ 
ized on the basis of mother right; that is, the child took 
his descent from his mother rather than from his father, 
and the children belonged to the mother’s tribe. 

The Stone and Bronze Age people were believers in 
rebirth. Any person could be reborn as an animal, or 
as another person. They believed in the power of the 
dead and made human sacrifices to their gods. Their 
religion included many gods and goddesses who lived 
much like people, but who had powers greater than 
mortals. Wizards and magicians are common characters 
in their stories. They believed in totemism. Each tribe 
or clan had some animal as its totem. The members of 
the tribe were forbidden to harm that animal or eat of 
its flesh. The tales give instances where a hero died for 
having chased or eaten his totem animal. 

The Celts probably came to Ireland about the year 
400 B. C. They divided the island into several provinces 


14 



THE KINSMEN OF ITH 


—Ulster in the north, Connacht in the west, Leinster in 
the east, and Munster in the south, and, later, Meath in 
the center of the island. Each district had its own 
chief king, with many lesser kings under him. The 
High King, who had authority over all the rest, built his 
capital, first on the hill of Usnach, in what is now West 
Meath, and later at Tara in Leinster, northeast of the 
present city of Dublin. 

True history does not begin in Ireland until some time 
after the Celtic invasion. The early historian Tighernach, 
who died A. D. 1088, says that the records of the 
Irish cannot be relied upon before the reign of Cimbaeth. 
Tighernach had access to all the records that had 
escaped the ravages of the Danes. Cimbaeth was the 
founder of Emain Macha, the capital of Ulster. He was 
believed to have ruled about 300 B. C. During his 
reign the Red Branch warriors, of whom the great Irish 
hero Cu Chullin was later a member, were organized. 
Tighernach obviously felt that the records after the reign 
of Cimbaeth were accurate. A modern historian hardly 
feels sure, however, until the reign of Cormac mac Art, 
who came to the throne of Ireland in A. D. 227. Cormac, 
according to tradition, organized an army after the model 
of the Roman army at that time in control of Britain. 
This army, legend says, he put under the leadership of 


IS 



HARPER AND BARD 


Finn mac Cumhaill. Finn is the hero of the cycle of 
tales and ballads that are called Ossianic, because many 
of them are attributed to his son Oisin. 

The Irish Celts were a cattle-raising people. This fact 
colors all of their literature. The great epic of the race 
concerns a cattle raid. Cattle were used as a standard 
of value; and raids into the territory of another tribe in 
search of cattle or wives provided much of the excitement 
for the warriors, and much of the material for the poets. 
They were a barbaric people. They killed the men 
captured in war and made slaves of the women. Men 
brought home the heads of their enemies, and displayed 
them, and made balls out of their brains to use as trophies. 

The Fligh Kings of Ireland tried to unite the provinces. 
In the year 388 after Christ, the High King Niall of the 
Nine Hostages was strong enough to make marauding 
expeditions into England. It was perhaps on one of 
these expeditions that a Christian youth named Patrick 
was brought to Ireland as a captive. After sixteen years of 
slavery the boy escaped from the country. In 432 he 
returned to Ireland as the great missionary of Christianity. 
Although the faith had been slowly coming into the 
country for two centuries, brought by traders, slaves and 
missionaries, it was the coming of Patrick that finally 
established Christianity as the dominant religion. 


16 



THE KINSMEN OF ITH 


Ireland quickly became the center of Christian learning 
in Europe. Students came from foreign lands to study 
with the famous Irish teachers. Missionaries were sent 
out from the Irish monastaries to England and France. 
The ancient Irish poets had used a literary language that 
could not be understood by the common people. In 
order to break the influence of the heathen poets, the 
Christian teachers adopted a new alphabet borrowed from 
the Romans. This they used to write down the old sagas 
in the language of the people. Occasionally they changed 
the pagan traditions in the stories so as to introduce 
Christian teachings but in general stayed pretty closely to 
the old accounts. 

For nearly a thousand years after the birth of Christ 
there was peace in Ireland, broken only by cattle raids and 
unimportant bickerings between tribes. Rome thought 
that the island was too small to bother with so that Ireland 
was left alone to develop her civilization in her own way. 
Art flourished. After the coming of Christianity a great 
body of literature was written. Then, from the eighth 
to the eleventh century, the history of Ireland is a con¬ 
fusion of attacks by the Norsemen and the Danes. The 
Danes came to fight the Norsemen and remained to pillage 
on their own account. They burned the towns in the 
north and destroyed the monastaries; the great libraries 


17 



HARPER AND BARD 


of early Celtic literature were often entirely lost. For a 
time a Norse king set up his power in Ulster. In 1014 
the Irish, under King Brian Boroimhe (Boru), defeated 
the Scandinavians at Clontarf near Dublin. After that 
the invaders settled quietly in the country, married Irish 
women, and became part of the Irish race. 

Henry II of England invaded and conquered Ireland 
in 1172. This date marks the end of any true Celtic 
literature and art in Ireland. The bards sang songs for 
three centuries more, but they were more concerned widi 
their hatred of the English than they were with the glories 
of the ancient Celtic race. 


X 


18 



TWO 


THE STORY-TELLERS 

“Sweet-stringed tunes, rhymes smoothly flowing, 

In the north and south of Erin, 

Shall reign for aye, till the day of doom, 

As the bards hare sung in meeting places” 

A STORY-TELLER in ancient Ireland was a man 
of rank and of consequence. His authority was 
next to that of the king himself. He sat beside the king at 
table. He might not lodge, when he went forth to travel, 
in the house of any man not of noble rank. His regular 
income was twenty-one cows and their grass in the terri¬ 
tory of the king, besides food for himself and for twenty- 
four attendants. He could have two dogs and six horses, 
and he could give temporary safety from arrest to any 
person in trouble. He might be either a bard, a file, or 
an ollamh. 

But these titles were won by years of labor. An 
ordinary bard studied for seven years. A file or ollamh 
must work for twelve. The highest rank, that of ollamh, 


19 






HARPER AND BARD 


included scholars and poets of great learning and genius. 
The student started by learning some of the simple 
stories and poems, and a little about philosophy and law. 
As he went on he learned the more complicated tales, more 
about law and grammar, and the art of composition in 
the meters used by each class of poets. At the end of 
seven years he might stop studying and become a practic¬ 
ing bard. If he continued, he learned the poet’s speech, 
a form of the language so old that it could no longer be 
understood by ordinary people. In his eighth year he 
studied magic and incantations, and learned to compose 
the legends of the kings. The last years of his course 
were spent in learning the higher forms of magic, in 
learning to write the more difficult forms of verse, and 
in finishing the study of law. When, after twelve years, 
he received the rank of ollamh, he had the right to wear 
the cloak of crimson and yellow feathers, and to carry 
the golden rod of office. He was then fitted to be the 
adviser of kings, the historian of a race, and the judge 
of a nation. 

In time the duties of a file became so burdensome and 
the body of material that he must memorize so extensive 
that a division was made in the office. The business of 
magic and enchantments was given to the druids, who 
became the religious leaders. The giving of legal decisions 


20 



THE STORY-TELLERS 


became the duty of the brehons. The file remained the 
poet and philosopher. 

To be a literary artist in ancient Ireland was no small 
task. An ollamh must be familiar with three hundred and 
fifty tales, besides many poems. These tales were divided 
into various classes: Destructions of Fortified Places, 
Cattle Raids, Courtships or Wooings, Battles, Tragical 
Deaths, Feasts, Adventures in the Fairy World, Elope¬ 
ments, and Visions. Not only must the chief poet know 
these stories, but he must be able to arrange them in 
succession. It was his business to harmonize all the tales 
into a connected historical sequence. 

By A. D. 900 a new system of dealing with ancient 
traditions was introduced by the school of learning estab¬ 
lished after the coming of Christianity. Scholars now 
began to reconstruct all the early history of Ireland on 
the central theory that the country had been subject to 
the Milesians for ages before the Christian era. All myth¬ 
ology and tradition was examined and arranged in definite 
time and sequence back to the flood. Every distinguished 
family in Ireland was thus able to trace its descent directly 
to one of the sons of Mil, and through them to Noah. 

After the Christian schools were well established and 
writing was common, the file became less important as a 
preserver of tradition. The stories that had been the 


21 



HARPER AND BARD 


special property of the poets could now be written down. 
Irish literature is indebted to these chief poets for the 
stories of the mythological cycle and for the tales about the 
heroes of the Red Branch of Ulster. After the decline of 
the ollamh and the file, the bards, who had been looked 
down upon by the chief poets, came into their own. 
Among the masses of the people they were the story-tellers, 
the preservers of the great traditions of the race. They 
composed most of the stories of the Ossian cycle and the 
later tales of the kings. Many of the tales about Finn 
they attributed to Oisin, who, according to tradition, 
was the greatest singer of his time. So great was the 
power of the bards among the common people that after 
the Norman invasion the English kings made frequent 
efforts to suppress them. 

Hundreds of the early Irish manuscripts were destroyed 
by the Danes in their ravages during the ninth and tenth 
centuries. Many of those that survived are lost now, but 
copies of some of them were made by copyists or scribes, 
and have come down to us in manuscripts transcribed 
after the Scandinavian invasions. The most important 
of these manuscripts are: the Lebor na h- Uidre, or Book 
of the Dun Cow, written about 1100; the Book of Leinster, 
written about 1150; and the Yellow Book of Lecan, 
written about 1400. Still later, scholars copied and 


22 



THE STORY-TELLERS 


arranged the whole history of Ireland in sequence as they 
got it from the ancient tales. The most famous of these 
histories is the Annals of the Four Masters. These annals 
were written down in a monastery in Donegal by four 
brothers of the Franciscan order. The work was finished 
in 1636. They trace the history of Ireland from the 
deluge, which they date in the year of the world 2242, 
down to the Norman conquest of Ireland in 1172 after 
Christ. Another famous history of Ireland is that of 
Geoffrey Keating, written a little after 1632. 

Nobody knows just how much of the real history of 
Ireland is given in the legends. Probably very little in 
the cycle of mythological tales. In the heroic legends of 
the Red Branch warriors and the Finn cycle there may 
be a bit more. Yet the ancient writers did not invent the 
tales entirely; many they copied from still older manu¬ 
scripts. The pictures of life and customs in the sagas 
can be relied upon as true representations of actual 
conditions. In the oldest sagas (those dealing with Cu 
Chullin) the warriors fight in chariots; in those dealing 
with a later time (the tales of Finn), they fight on horse¬ 
back. That is actually what did occur. The descriptions 
of weapons, of clothing, and of houses, correspond exactly 
to what was true of each period as it is revealed by scien¬ 
tific investigations. From the literary standpoint, however, 


23 



HARPER AND BARD 


it is the beauty of the tales and not their historical content 
that is significant. 

The most important fact concerning the literature of 
Ireland has been the position of the country as an island 
not connected with England. The Romans never at¬ 
tempted to invade Ireland; no Roman settlements were 
made there. The influence of Roman civilization and the 
Latin language upon the west and north of Europe was 
profound. The people lost their national characteristics. 
They learned to write in Latin rather than in their own 
language. Only three nations kept at all outside the 
influence of Rome and produced literature in everyday 
speech that reflected life and thought in pagan times. 
These three were the Anglo-Saxons, the Icelanders, and 
the Irish. And the most ancient Irish literature is the 
earliest of the three. 

Writing appeared in Ireland very early* Stone inscrip¬ 
tions show that it was known as early as the third century 
B. C., shortly after the Celts arrived in Ireland. A curious 
kind of lettering called Ogam is found on numerous 
stone monuments and is mentioned in many of the stories 
of the Red Branch, but the writing of Ogam requires too 
much space to have been used for any literary purpose. 
Latin writers dealing with Ireland mention the writing of 
the natives, and the ancient tales often speak of writing, 


24 



THE STORY-TELLERS 


so that it must have been fairly common. The materials 
used were probably wooden tablets covered with wax, 
since writing on parchment was unknown until the 
Christian era. 

All of the Irish literature now in existence was written 
down after the introduction of Christianity, but it is 
evident that the writers of the early sagas and romances, 
who were dealing with happenings of six or seven hun¬ 
dred years before, could not have kept so accurately to 
their stories if they had not had some actual written 
material as a guide. The coming of Christianity to Ire¬ 
land did not mean the exclusive use of Latin for all com¬ 
position, as it did in most other countries of western 
Europe. Instead, the learned men of the Church made a 
Celtic alphabet, imitated from one of the Latin alphabets, 
but with it they wrote in the language of the people. 
They largely discarded the old poetic language of 
the ollamh and wrote in common speech. Thus they 
gave a new impulse to the native literature instead of 
crushing it. 

The great Irish epics and sagas are in prose. Lays 
and laments in verse are scattered through them, but the 
main story is in prose. Outside of the stories there is a 
great body of poetry, mostly lyrical. The early Irish had 
a keen appreciation of nature for its own sake. The 


25 



HARPER AND BARD 


poet and magician Marvan chose to live in a hut in the 
forest. When he was asked the cause of such strange 
behavior he gave his reasons in a poem: 

“The yoice of the wind against the branchy wood 
Upon the deep-blue sky: 

Cascades of the river, the note of the swan, 

Delightful music! 

The strain of the thrush, familiar cuckoos, 

Above my house . 

Swarms of bees and chafers, the little musicians of 
the world, 

A gentle chorus; 

Wild geese and ducks, shortly before the summer s end, 
The music of the dark torrent.” 

Dr. Kuno Meyer translation 

The Irish were probably the earliest European race to 
use rime in writing verse. The training of the poets was 
long and hard, but it made them masters of their craft. 
Even in the degenerate days of the later bards no poet 
would have been guilty of the haphazard meter of much 
early English verse. Poetry was far more widely used 
than in other countries. The decisions of judges were put 
into verse form to give them nobility. Even treatises 
about geography were written in verse. There is little love 
poetry, however; most of the love poetry that remains is 
in the form of laments for dead lovers. 


26 



THE STORY-TELLERS 


Early in the fifth century when the Huns, Vandals, 
and Visigoths overran Gaul, Ireland offered a haven of 
refuge for the scholars of western Europe. Fleeing from 
the barbarians they brought to Ireland a great advance 
in classical learning, and gained for themselves safety 
and peace in a land that had been for centuries hospitable 
to scholarship. Recent investigations have shown that 
communication and commerce between Gaul and Ireland 
were common in the early Christian centuries. The 
fugitive scholars probably came to the south and west of 
the island. There they made learning so famous that they 
attracted students for hundreds of years. They estab¬ 
lished schools which taught Latin grammar, oratory, 
poetry, and a little Greek. Late in the sixth century 
masters went from these schools back to the continent 
where they established famous monastic schools in Gaul, 
Italy, and even in Germany. The influence of the foreign 
scholars on Irish literature was profound. They taught 
the use of classical verse forms: rime, meter, and pattern 
of syllables. They made of the early Irish churchman, 
who was already a literary man, a scholar and a humanist. 

The early Irish sagas fall naturally into three groups: 
the mythological cycle, which deals with the five in¬ 
vasions; the tales of the Red Branch heroes, chiefly about 
Cu Chullin; and the cycle centering around Finn and 


27 



HARPER AND BARD 


Oisin. Together they carry the traditions of Ireland 
from the earliest times to the third century after Christ. 
They make up a body of literature unique among the 
literatures of the world—the expression of a race prac¬ 
tically untouched by outside influences. They give us a 
picture of pre-Christian Ireland—her wars, her religion, 
her customs, and her ideals. But they do more than 
that. Through them we hear the earliest voice in the 
dawn of Western European civilization. 


X 


28 



THREE 


THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 



TALES OF THE FIVE INVASIONS 
“Should anyone enquire of me about Erin, 

1 can inform him most accurately 
Concerning every invasion that took place, 

From the beginning of all pleasing life” 
Fintaris poem 

S AINT FINNIAN of Moville in the County of 
Donegal was hungry. He went to the home of Tuan 
mac Cairill, a chieftain living near by, and asked for food. 
The chief, who was not a Christian, refused to entertain 
the saint, who thereupon sat down on the doorstep and 
fasted. Tuan was a kindly man, so kindly that he could 
not bear for long the sight of the aged saint perched 
starving upon his threshold. He brought St. Finnian in 
to his table. The two men became friends, and Tuan 
told to St. Finnian the story of the first invasions of 
Ireland. He was able to do so because he was the 
nephew of Partholon, the earliest prehistoric settler. He 


29 


HARPER AND BARD 


had been reborn, in true mythological fashion, and thus 
had lived on till the coming of Christianity. 

The rale of the invasions really starts with the coming 
of Partholon and his followers. But Christian scribes 
have given an earlier story in order to connect the settle¬ 
ment of Ireland with the biblical account. Ceasair, the 
daughter of Bith, who was a fourth son of Noah, came to 
Ireland forty days before the flood. With her were her 
father, her husband Fintan, and her brother Ladhra. 
Noah had refused to give them space in the ark. He had 
suggested that they go to the western part of the world 
where there had been no people and hence there could have 
been no sin, and where the flood, which was a punish¬ 
ment for sin, would perhaps not reach. Ladhra died 
shortly after the party reached Ireland. He was the first 
man to die in that country. 

The flood did reach Ireland, and all the company 
except Fintan were drowned. He was saved by a miracle. 
A deep sleep fell upon him, and he did not wake until 
after the water went down. He lived on in Ireland 
until six centuries after the birth of Christ. Because of 
his great age he could settle land disputes, and he told 
the story of Ceasair’s expedition to the scribes. 

According to another account, Partholon, who was 
the first real settler, came from Spain with one thousand 


30 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


followers. He was fleeing from his own land because he 
had killed his father and mother. He landed in Ireland 
two hundred and seventy-eight years after the flood. Ten 
years after his arrival he fought a terrible battle with the 
Fomorians, monstrous sea pirates who had only one hand 
or one foot, whose eyes were in their shoulders or in the 
backs of their heads, and who had the heads of horses 
or goats. The Partholonians defeated them with great 
slaughter. This was the first battle to be fought in Ireland. 

After thirty years Partholon died. During his time 
forests were cut down and land was cleared for grazing. 
His descendants ruled over the island for three hundred 
years, and their followers increased to nine thousand. 
But a plague came upon them because of the crime of 
Partholon, so that all his people perished. South of 
Dublin to this day is a mound that is called the tomb 
of the people of Partholon. 

The Nemedians, followers of the sons of Nemed, came 
thirty years later. They in their turn cleared the forests, 
built forts, and fought with the Fomorians. The ancient 
Christian scribes trace the descent of both Partholon and 
Nemed to Magog, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah. 
It was in Nemed’s time that many of the lakes and plains 
of Ireland were formed. 

A chief of the Fomorians built a high tower on Tory 


31 



HARPER AND BARD 


Island, off the coast of Donegal. Nemed and his fol¬ 
lowers fought four great battles with the Fomorians, and 
defeated them each time. But a plague carried off two 
thousand of the Nemedians, so that the pirates con¬ 
quered them. Then the Fomorians laid a heavy fine on 
the Nemedians. Each first of November, which is the 
Irish Samhain, they were required to pay to their con¬ 
querors a tribute of two-thirds of their produce of corn, 
of cattle, and of children. 

When they could endure the oppression of the Fomor¬ 
ians no longer, the Nemedians rose against their enemies, 
stormed the tower, and at the second attack, pulled it to 
the ground. As they fought, the tide came up over Tory 
island, and both Nemedians and Fomorians were over¬ 
whelmed. After the battle there were only thirty Neme¬ 
dians left. This remnant of the race escaped in boats 
to the continent of Europe, where they separated. Half 
of them went to the north and half to the south. Again 
Ireland lay waste for two hundred years. 

The part of the Nemedians that went to the south 
found their way to Greece. There they were made slaves 
and were forced to carry heavy leather bags of earth from 
the river valleys up the mountains in order to make vine¬ 
yards. From the sacks they got the name of Fir Bolg, 
which, so the ancient tales assure us, means “men of the 


32 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


bags.” The fifteen Fir Bolg slaves increased to five 
thousand. There came a time when they remembered the 
stories of the green island in the west that their ancestors 
knew. Then they tired of slavery, made themselves boats 
out of their leather bags, and sailed back to Ireland. They 
were led by Dela, the son of Loich, who was the great- 
grandson of Nemed. Dela had five sons, who divided 
Ireland between them. Slainghe, who was the eldest, 
was made high king. He built his palace at Tara in 
Leinster. The old accounts say that the Fir Bolg ruled 
in peace for thirty-seven years. But in those years there 
were nine high kings of Ireland. 

The fifteen Nemedians who went to the north lived in 
the Scandinavian countries, where they, too, multiplied 
until they were a large nation. There they studied magic 
and wizardry and every other art. They were called the 
Tuatha De Danann, which perhaps means “the people 
of the goddess Danu.” After two hundred years they 
also remembered the lovely island their ancestors had told 
about and set sail in three hundred ships to find it. 
They took with them the stone called Lia Fail, or stone 
of destiny, which roared when the rightful king of Ireland 
was crowned upon it. It was used for centuries by the 
kings of Tara, but in the sixth century it was lent to the 
king of Scotland, who never returned it. Edward I took 


33 



HARPER AND BARD 


it to England in 1293, and it is now the Coronation stone 
under the king’s throne in Westminster Abbey. 

Another treasure of the Tuatha De Danann was the 
sword of Lugh of the Long Arm. This was a magic 
sword that could speak. A third treasure was a magic 
spear that returned to its owner’s hand. Most interesting 
of all was a famous iron pot or caldron, from which no 
man ever went away unsatisfied. 

Nuada, son of Eochaid, was the leader of the Tuatha 
De Danann when they returned to Ireland. His brother 
was a gigantic wizard whom they called the Dagda. A 
young man called Bres was also with them. His mother 
was a Tuatha De Danann princess, but his father was 
Elotha, the king of the Fomorians. Bres was a handsome 
and courageous warrior, but of a mean and miserly dispo¬ 
sition, which was to cause him trouble later. 

At the time when the Tuatha De Danann landed in 
Ireland, the Fir Bolg were ruled by the last of their high 
kings, Eochaid, and by Sreng, a young and famous 
warrior. On the arrival of the new-comers a vision was 
revealed to Eochaid, so that he was troubled and sent 
for his wizard, Cesard. 

“I saw a great flock of birds,” said the king, “coming 
from the depths of the ocean. They settled all over us 
and fought with the people of Ireland. They brought 


34 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


confusion on us, and destroyed us. One of us struck the 
noblest of the birds and cut off one of its wings.” 

By means of ritual and the use of magic Cesard re¬ 
vealed to the king the meaning of his vision. “Warriors 
are coming across the sea,” he said, “a people skilled in 
every art. They will be victorious in every strife.” 

The Tuatha De Danann burned their ships when 
they arrived in Ireland, so that they could say that 
they had flown across the water by magic. Either the 
smoke of the ships or a mist had hidden their landing, 
and no man saw them come; hence some of the ancient 
writers say they were demons or phantoms. When the 
cloud cleared away the Fir Bolg saw them close at 
hand. Then they sent out Sreng to visit them, for they 
thought he would terrify the strangers with his uncouth 
and ferocious looks. The Tuatha De Danann saw him 
coming and said, “Let us send Bres to meet him.” 

The two warriors spoke to each other and were aston¬ 
ished to find that they spoke the same language, and 
that they were both descendants of Nemed. They ex¬ 
amined each other’s weapons. The spear of Sreng was 
blunt and heavy, while the javelins of Bres were slender 
and had sharp points. They exchanged weapons, so 
that each camp might see what the spears of the other 
were like. 


35 



HARPER AND BARD 


“Tell the Fir Bolg,” said Bres, “that they must either 
give my people half of Ireland or battle.” 

“On my word,” replied Sreng, “I would rather give 
you half of Ireland than face your weapons.” But when 
he returned to his own camp and gave the king his mes¬ 
sage, Eochaid forgot the vision and the wizard’s prophecy 
and decided to give battle rather than half of Ireland. 
He was afraid that if he gave half the enemy would 
in time take all. 

p p 

The First Battle of Moytura 
The troops of the Tuatha De Danann encamped on 
the plain of Moytura, which is to the south of the pres¬ 
ent county Mayo. Then for three days their wizards 
sent clouds of mist, furious rains of fire, and a downpour 
of red blood upon the heads of the Fir Bolg. The 
power of the Fir Bolg sorcerers was just strong enough 
to stop the attack. Then the Tuatha De Danann sent 
their poets to make a second offer of peace if they re¬ 
ceived half of Ireland. Again the Fir Bolg refused, but 
an armistice was granted until each side could make 
weapons like those of the other. 

Six weeks of the summer was gone before the weapons 
were finished. The hosts arose that day with the first 
glimmer of sunlight. The close-packed companies ad- 


36 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


vanced to battle with the Tuatha De Danann. Then the 
poet, Fathach, went in front of the Fir Bolg troops 
to spread the report of their fury. He raised a pillar 
of stone, against which he rested. Then he sang: 

“Many will be the gashed bodies in the east , 

Many a head will be severed with rigor and heroism” 

In the space of one day great numbers were destroyed. 
By the close of the first day, the Tuatha De Danann 
were defeated and returned to their camp. The Fir 
Bolg did not pursue them across the battlefield, but 
returned in good spirits to their own camp. They each 
brought with them into the presence of their king a 
stone and a head, and made a great cairn of them. The 
physicians had made a great well of water and crushed 
healing herbs into it until the water was thick and green. 
The wounded warriors were dipped into the well and 
thus became whole again. 

The second day’s fighting was worse than the first. 
There was straining of spears and shivering of swords 
and battering of bodies. When night fell the Fir Bolg 
were driven across the battlefield back to their camp, 
but they each had again a stone and a head to add to 
the cairn before the king. 

The third day neither side gained the advantage, but 
during the night, Fintan with his thirteen sons joined 


37 



HARPER AND BARD 


the ranks of the Fir Bolg, so that their spirits rose. 

The fury of the battle on the fourth day of the fight¬ 
ing was so great that Fathach, the poet, returned from 
his column of stone for fear of his life. The monsters 
and “hags of doom” heard the battle noises and cried 
aloud, so that their voices penetrated the hollows of 
the earth. It was then that Bres made an attack on 
the Fir Bolg army and killed one hundred and fifty 
men. He struck nine blows on the shield of Eochaid, 
the high king. The king in his turn dealt Bres nine 
wounds on the head and thigh. Then Sreng turned 
his face to the army of the Tuatha De Danann and 
slew one hundred and fifty warriors. He struck nine 
blows on the shield of their high king Nuada, and 
Nuada dealt him nine wounds. 

Then a suitable place was cleared for the chiefs. To 
them was left the battle. Each of them inflicted thirty 
wounds on the other. Sreng dealt a blow with his sword 
at Nuada, and cutting away the rim of his shield, sev¬ 
ered his right arm at the shoulder, so that the king’s 
arm with a third of his shield fell to the ground. The 
Dagda came and stood over Nuada, and fifty soldiers 
and physicians came and carried him from the field. 
The severed arm was raised on a pile of rocks and on 
them the blood trickled. 


38 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


Eochaid and his son now joined in the fray and 
acquitted themselves valorously. But the battle raged 
so long and so fiercely that Eochaid was overcome by 
weariness and thirst. He called Sreng to him and said, 
“You must maintain the fight while I go in search of a 
drink, for I cannot endure this consuming thirst.” 

He took a hundred warriors to go in search of water. 
The Tuatha De Danann saw him go and their wizards 
hid from him all the streams and rivers in Ireland till 
he was led far astray. Then they fell upon him and 
killed him. Sreng continued to fight for a day and a 
night after his fellows, but in the end he offered to share 
the land with the Tuatha De Danann. The Tuatha De 
Danann gave the Fir Bolg their choice of all the provinces 
of Ireland. The Fir Bolg chose the province of Con¬ 
nacht, and Sreng became their king. 

v v 

From this time on the Fir Bolg were a subject race. 
The rulers of the rest of Ireland forced them to pay 
tribute in the form of service in war. The mighty Finn, 
hero of the Ossian cycle of sagas, and his famous band 
of warriors known as the Fian, were of the Fir Bolg. 
Historians trace the descendants of the Fir Bolg in Con¬ 
nacht down to the seventeenth century. They appear in 
the Ulster epic as the subjects of Queen Medb of Con- 


39 



HARPER AND BARD 


nacht. The hero Cu Chullin killed one of their princes 
on the great cattle-raid of Cooley. 

The Second Battle of Moytura 
Nuada could no longer be king of the Tuatha De 
Danann because no man with a blemish could rule over 
them. They therefore elected Bres as their king. 
Diancecht, the surgeon, and Creidne, the smith, worked 
for seven years to make a silver hand that would repair 
the king’s deformity. During that time Bres was not 
a popular king. He levied heavy taxes on his people; 
the ancient bards report that the knives of his friends 
were not greased at his table, and his guests went from 
his feasts with no smell of ale on their breaths. Worse 
than that, he was inhospitable to a poet, in direct oppo¬ 
sition to the law and to public opinion. This poet, 
Coirpre, made a satire on the king: 

“Without food quickly served, 

Without milk whereon a calf can grow, 

Without shelter for a man under the bloomy night, 
Without means to entertain a bardic company — 

Let such be the condition of Bres” 

This was the first satire ever written in Ireland. The 
people were delighted with it, for they hated Bres. Just 
at this time Nuada came back with his silver hand and 


40 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


Bres was removed from the throne. He took ship to 
the islands of the Fomorians and asked his father for 
ships and men with which to go back and conquer Ireland 
for himself. His father consented rather reluctantly, and 
sent with Bres a powerful warrior called Balor of the 
Evil Eye. Balor had one eye in the middle of his 
forehead to see through, but he had another in the back 
of his head. This rear eye was so powerful that when 
it was open its beams slew every one in their path. 
It took four men to raise the lid of that eye with a 
polished rod. 

The Tuatha De Danann had in their army Nuada of 
the Silver Hand, the Dagda and his brother Ogma, 
and a newcomer called Lugh. This young man had been 
reared by Eochaid of the Fir Bolg. His father was 
one of the Tuatha De Danann, however the boy had 
come back to his people as soon as he was grown. They 
were glad to have him, for he was master of all the 
ancient arts of Ireland. In after days Lugh was the 
father of the great hero, Cu Chullin. 

The armies took seven years to prepare for battle. The 
smith Goibniu made the arms for the Tuatha De Danann. 
The Dagda, who was a great magician, prepared to throw 
the mountains of Ireland down on the heads of the 
Fomorians, and to shut off the river and lakes from 


41 



HARPER AND BARD 


them, so that they would die of thirst. Morrigu, the 
goddess of war, was persuaded to join the Tuatha De 
Danann. 

Under a truce the Dagda visited the camp of the 
Fomorians. They had heard that he was greedy and 
especially fond of porridge. They accordingly prepared 
for him a kettle of soup made of eighty pots of milk 
with meal and fat to thicken it, and with halves of pigs 
and sheep cooked along with the rest. When it was 
cooked they had no pot large enough to pour it in, so 
they had to put it in a hole in the ground. Then they 
gave the Dagda a spoon so large that the bowl of it 
would contain a man and a woman, and said, “Unless 
you eat all that is there, you shall be put to death.” 

The Dagda ate it all with good appetite and scraped 
the hole with his finger. Then he went to sleep to 
digest his soup. When he awoke he went home to the 
Tuatha De Danann camp, but he had to go very slowly 
because of the food he had eaten. His club, which he 
trailed behind him, was so heavy that it made a furrow 
deep enough to serve as the boundary between the two 
provinces. 

The battle began on the last day of October. In the 
terrible fighting Nuada of the Silver Hand was killed. 
In the heat of the battle Lugh of the Long Arm went 


42 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


up to Balor of the Evil Eye and whispered something 
to him. No one heard what it was, but Balor became 
so enraged that he lifted the lid of his evil eye without 
help. Then Lugh cast a stone through the evil eye 
so fiercely that it went through Balor’s brain and out 
the eye in his forehead and he died. Bres was captured 
but his life was spared, because his mother had been of 
the Tuatha De Danann. The sword of the Fomorian 
King, was captured by Ogma. As Ogma drew it out of 
the scabbard to clean the blood off of it, the sword began 
to speak and related all the deeds that it had done. 

But the Fomorians captured booty also—the famous 
harp of the Dagda. It had sleep strains; when they were 
struck no man could remain awake. It had weep strains 
and laugh strains, and no man could resist them. The 
Dagda went to the hall of the Fomorians to regain his 
harp. The Fomorians had hung it on the wall, but 
when its master called to it, it came down from the 
wall and went to him so fast that it killed nine men who 
were in the way. Then he played the sleep strain on 
the harp, and all the Fomorians lay down and slept, 
and the Dagda escaped. 

The Fomorians were defeated so badly that they re¬ 
turned to their own country across the sea, and they 
never molested the people of Ireland again. The Tuatha 


43 



HARPER AND BARD 


De Danann elected as king the Dagda, who ruled in the 
land for one hundred and sixty-eight years. 


Among the most popular of the Irish stories are three 
that are called the Three Sorrows of Story Telling. They 
are “The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn,” “The Fate 
of the Children of Lir,” and “The Fate of the Children 
of Usnach.” The first two belong to the mythological 
cycles of tales, but the last, which is the famous story 
of Deirdre, is one of the Red Branch tales. “The Fate 
of the Children of Lir” shows plainly the changes made 
by the Christian narrator. 

v v 

The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn 

Lugh, the son of Kain, sent his father to gather to¬ 
gether all the fairy people to help in the war against 
the Fomorians. Kain was hurrying across the plain of 
Muirthemne in Ulster when he met three warriors, the 
sons of Tuirenn. Now a blood-feud existed between Kain 
and the house of Tuirenn, so that Kain had no desire 
to meet them. Striking himself with his magic wand, 
he turned into a pig, and joined a herd of swine feeding 
near by. But the quick eye of Brian, the eldest of the 
three warriors, saw him. Using his magic wand, he 


44 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


turned his two brothers into dogs, who attacked the 
pig and drove it toward Brian, who thrust his spear 
into its heart. 

Kain cried from the body of the pig in a human voice 
begging to be allowed to resume his human form before 
he died. 

“I had rather kill a man than a pig,” said Brian. 

When Kain stood before them in human form, he 
cried, “If ye had slain a pig, ye needed to pay only the 
blood-fine of a pig, but now ye have slain a man and 
ye must pay the blood-fine of a man. And the weapons 
ye slay me with shall tell the tale to him who shall avenge 
my death.” 

“Then we will slay you with no weapons,” shouted 
Brian. He drew out the spear, and he and his brothers 
stoned Kain to death. When they tried to bury the body 
the earth refused to receive it six times, but the seventh 
time it remained under the sod. 

After the battle Lugh missed his father and set out 
to look for him. When he crossed the place of his 
father’s grave, the stones of the field called out to him 
and told him the manner of his father’s death. Lugh 
jumped from his horse, dug up his father’s body, and 
kissed it three times. Turning to his companions he 
said, “Now will it be ill with the sons of Tuirenn.” 


45 



HARPER AND BARD 


Lugh returned to Tara, called for the slayers of his 
father, and demanded his blood-fine. Brian swore that 
he and his brothers had not killed Kain. 

“Nevertheless,” said he, “we will give the blood-price 
for Kain, as though we had done the act.” 

In the presence of the assembled warriors Lugh pro¬ 
nounced the blood-fine. “Three apples, the skin of a 
pig, a poisoned spear, a cooking spit, and three shouts 
on a hill.” 

The fine sounded easy, but when the sons of Tuirenn 
had accepted it, Lugh explained what he meant. The 
apples were to be those that grew in the garden of the 
sun, the pig skin was a magic skin that healed the wounds 
of any man it was laid upon, the spear belonged to the 
king of Persia, the cooking spit belonged to the sea 
nymphs of the sunken island of Finchory, and the three 
shouts were to be given on the hill belonging to Moachan, 
a fierce warrior who had sworn never to let any man raise 
his voice there. 

The sons of Tuirenn spent all of their lives paying 
the blood-fine for Kain. Each time they returned with 
a part of it Lugh reminded them of what was still to 
be paid. Brian put on a water dress and stole the magic 
spit from the fifty nymphs on the island of Finchory, 
which is far under the sea. After a terrible fight the 


46 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


brothers killed Moachan and his sons; and although 
they were mortally wounded, they gave three feeble cries 
from the top of the hill. They then sent in haste to 
Lugh asking him to lend them the magic pig skin that 
would cure their wounds, but Lugh refused to send it. 
They died, and their aged father dug a wide grave for 
the three and died with them. 

p v 

The Fate of the Children of Lir 

Lir, a warrior of the Tuatha De Danann, had four 
children—a daughter called Fionuala, and three sons, 
Conn, Fiacha, and Hugh. The mother of the children 
had died, and Lir had married a lovely woman named 
Aoife. At first Aoife was a devoted step-mother to the 
children, but as time went on she felt that her husband 
slighted her because of his love for his sons and daughter. 
Her jealousy grew so great that she lay in bed a whole 
year, brooding over her wrongs until she resolved to 
kill the four children. 

First she tried to bribe the servants into murdering 
the children. They refused, and she had not the courage 
to do it herself. Instead she persuaded them to go 
bathing in Lake Derryvaragh. When they were in the 
water, she changed them into four white swans and laid 
a curse upon them. For three hundred years they were 


47 



HARPER AND BARD 


to live in the waters of Lake Derryvaragh; for three 
hundred years in the waters of the Straits of Moyne, 
between Ireland and Scotland; for three hundred years 
in the Atlantic ocean by Inshglory. Never could they 
be saved from their bird fate until a Christian bell was 
heard over Ireland. 

As soon as the wicked deed was done Aoife repented, 
but she could not undo the spell. She tried to make their 
lot easier by giving the swans the power of human reason 
and human speech and the gift of sweet music. This 
kindness did not save her from being punished for her 
crime. She was turned into an evil demon of the air 
and was never heard of again. 

When Lir found what had happened to his children, 
he moved his home to the shore of the lake, so that he 
might be near them. Other people came in companies 
to hear the sweet music of the swans, and for three hun¬ 
dred years there was peace and gentleness in the land. 

But the day came when they must leave their friends 
for the lonely, dangerous seas of Moyne. Here they 
endured terrible hardships in the cold storms. Fionuala 
sheltered her brothers with her wings and sang: 

Cruel to us was Aoife 

Who played her magic upon us, 

And drove us out on the water — 


48 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


Four wonderful snow-white swans. 

<( Three sons and a single daughter 
In clefts of the cold rocks dwelling, 

The hard rocks, cruel to mortals — 

We are full of keening tonight.” 

When the time for the third period of their doom 
came, they flew to Inshglory, off the coast of County 
Mayo, where a young Milesian farmer who lived on 
Erris Bay befriended them. A hermit came to live on 
Erris Bay. He built a chapel with a bell. When the 
swans heard the bell ring they swam to the shore singing 
a song in praise of God. The good saint was amazed 
to hear swans sing, but when he had heard their story, 
he was glad to baptize them. As he did so their swan 
feathers fell away revealing four wizened old people. 
They died almost at once. The hermit buried them all 
in one grave as Fionuala requested. “Lay us in one 
grave,” she said, “and place Conn on my right hand 
and Fiacha at my left hand, and Hugh before my face, 
for there they were wont to be when I sheltered them 
many a winter night on the seas of Moyle.” 

e v 

The Tuatha De Danann had ruled for almost two 
hundred years when Ireland was again invaded, this 
time by the sons of Mil. The story has already been told 


49 



HARPER AND BARD 


of Ith, who paid with his life for his appreciation of the 
beauties of the land. At the time Ith came to Ireland, 
the country was ruled by the three grandsons of the 
Dagda, who had for wives the three women whose names 
are poetic synonyms for Ireland throughout Irish litera¬ 
ture—Banba, Fodla, and Eriu or Erin. 

The sons of Mil came to Ireland to avenge the death 
of their grandfather Ith. They had with them thirty- 
six chiefs and their families, and the first poet whose name 
has been recorded, Amergin of the White Knee. The 
Dagda had been a poet of the highest rank, an ollamh, 
but his reputation as a poet has been almost forgotten 
in his fame as a magician and warrior. 

When the Milesians marched to Tara, they found as¬ 
sembled there the three kings of the Tuatha De Danann. 
They requested an armistice to decide whether they should 
fight or give hostages. The Milesians agreed and with¬ 
drew to the length of nine waves from the shore. Then 
the Tuatha De Danann raised a magic wind that tore 
at the Milesian ships and made Ireland look no bigger 
than a pig’s back to their sight. Amergin sent a man up 
the masthead to see if there was wind aloft. There was 
none, so that he knew it was a magic tempest. Then 
Amergin chanted a lay and the waters became calm. 
When one of the Milesians exulted aloud at the thought 


50 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


of how they would slay all of the Tuatha Da Danann, 
the tempest rose again. Many of the Milesian ships were 
lost, but the rest of the army finally reached land safely. 
At Teltown they met and defeated the Tuatha De 
Danann, killing the three kings and queens. 

From this time on the Tuatha De Danann took refuge 
in the green hills of Ireland. There they had wonderful 
palaces adorned with great beauty. Therein were trees 
with fruit that never failed, together with a never ending 
supply of roast pig and good beer. There no one ever 
died. From these mounds they came forth at will to 
take part in the affairs of mortal men. They are found 
implicated in the affairs of the Red Branch. Women of 
the Tuatha De Danann seek mortal lovers, and men of 
the fairy world carry off earthly women to be their wives. 
These alliances are the subject matter of many tales. 
There is a story that Ethne, one of the Tuatha De Danann 
women, lived for fifteen hundred years until the coming of 
St. Patrick and by him was converted to Christianity. 

The Dagda seems to have been the most important 
chieftain of the Tuatha De Danann. It was he who 
portioned out to them the fairy palaces of Ireland, called 
sidhe (shee). One he gave to Lugh, one to Ogma, and 
he kept two for himself. One of these he later lost to 
his son Angus. It is probable that some at least of these 


51 



HARPER AND BARD 


ancient mounds were used as burial places for the early 
Irish kings, so that there would be plenty of reason for 
the Irish to associate them with the fairy people. 

Of all the wooing stories that a file must know, there 
is none more lovely than the tale of Etain, half fairy 
and half mortal lady. So beautiful was she, legends 
tell, that she set the standard of what was fair in ancient 
Ireland. She was of the race of the Tuatha De Danann 
who had made their homes in the fairy mounds since 
their defeat by the Milesians. Like many another fairy 
woman, she became the wife of a mortal man and loved 
him tenderly, giving up her fairy privileges for his sake. 

v v 

The Wooing of Etain 

Midir, the fairy king of the mound of Bri Leith, loved 
Etain, the loveliest of all the fairy women. His wife 
Fuamnach hated Etain because of Midir’s love for her. 
When she could bear her jealousy no longer, Fuamnach 
sought the aid of a druid. With his help she changed 
Etain into an insect. Then she raised a great wind and 
blew the frail insect about Ireland for seven years. At 
the end of that time Etain was blown to the palace of 
Angus, the son of the Dagda. In spite of her changed 
shape, Angus recognized Etain, took her in and cherished 


52 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


her. He made a bower of blossoms and precious herbs 
for her, which he carried with him wherever he went. 

But the jealous Fuamnach heard of the care that 
Angus gave Etain. She went to her husband and said, 
“Invite thy foster son Angus to visit thee, and I will 
go in search of Etain.” 

When this was done and Angus was gone from his 
palace, Fuamnach sought and found Etain in her bower. 
Again she transformed the unfortunate princess into a 
little animal, some say a butterfly, and raised such a 
blast of wind that Etain was driven over Ireland for 
another seven years. Weak and fainting, she fell through 
the roof of a dwelling where the men of Ulster were 
sitting over their ale. She dropped into the cup of the 
wife of Etar the warrior. The wife of Etar drank her 
with the beer that was in the cup, and in the course of 
time Etain was born again as the earthly daughter of 
the wife of Etar. They gave her the name Etain, the 
Daughter of Etar. In her father’s palace she grew to 
maidenhood more fair than any other girl in all Ireland. 

When Angus found how he had been deceived, and 
that Etain was gone from the bower where he kept her, 
he was very angry. He sought and found Fuamnach 
at the house of Bresal Etarlam, the druid. In his wrath 
he cut off her head and took it back to his kingdom, 


53 



HARPER AND BARD 


where he stuck it upon a stake in front of his stronghold. 

In the days when Etain was grown to a lovely golden¬ 
haired maid in her father’s palace, there ruled in Ireland 
a high king called Eochaid Aiream. When he had been 
king for almost a year, he sent out a command that 
all the kings of Ireland and their wives should assemble 
at the end of the summer for the Festival of Tara. The 
kings of Ireland sent back answer: “We will not come 
to the Festival of Tara while the king of Ireland is 
without a wife who is worthy of him, for there can be 
no king without a queen, nor any noble who is wifeless.” 

Thereupon Eochaid sent out messengers to search 
through Ireland for a maid who would be a wife worthy 
of the king. She must be lovely in form and in face, 
and of high birth. Moreover she must never have been 
wife to any man. They came upon Etain at her father’s 
palace and brought word of her beauty to the king. 

When Eochaid went to see Etain to judge whether 
his couriers had given true reports of her loveliness, he 
found her bathing by the side of a fountain. Fler arms 
were white as the snow of a single night; her cheeks were 
rosy as the foxglove. Even and small were her teeth, 
and they shone like pearls. Fler eyes were as blue as 
the hyacinth, her lips delicate and crimson; very soft 
and white were her shoulders. White as the foam of the 


54 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


waves was her side, long was it and soft as silk; smooth 
and white were her thighs, and her feet were white and 
slim. On her head were two tresses of golden hair, and 
each tress had been plaited into four strands; at the 
end of each strand was a little ball of gold. Never was 
a maid fairer than she, or more worthy of love. 

She had long loved Eochaid for the tales of his comeli¬ 
ness and valor that she had heard, so that she went 
with him gladly. And great was the welcome that they 
gained at Tara when the festival was held. 

Eochaid had a brother named Ailill, who came to 
the festival at Tara, and who loved Etain so gready 
that he fell very ill. When the festival was over he was 
carried to Eochaid’s palace at Tethba. There he wasted 
with the sickness for a year, but he would tell no one 
the cause of his trouble. 

When Eochaid left Tethba to be gone for a year on 
a royal progress around Ireland, he called Etain to him 
and said: “Lady, deal gently with Ailill so long as he is 
alive, and should he die, see to it that his grave be dug, 
and that a standing stone carved with his name in Ogam 
be set up in memory of him.” 

When Etain went to the house where Ailill lay in 
his sickness, she soon saw what was the cause of his ill¬ 
ness. She was greatly grieved that her husband's 


55 



HARPER AND BARD 


brother should die for love of her, so that she made 
a tryst with him to meet her at the break of day in a 
house outside of the walls of the palace. There she would 
give him his desire, for she would not dishonor her hus¬ 
band in his own house. Each day for three days she 
made the tryst with Ailill, and each day he lay awake 
all the night thinking of their meeting, but fell asleep 
just at daybreak and so missed the tryst. Each day a 
strange man appeared at the place where Etain waited 
for Ailill and talked to Etain, but she did not know him. 

On the third day, when Ailill had failed to keep his 
tryst, the stranger told Etain that he was Midir, her former 
husband. “It was I,” he said, “who prevented Ailill from 
coming to meet thee, and saved thine honor. Wilt thou 
come with me?” But Etain loved her husband Eochaid 
and would not leave him. 

When Etain returned to Tethba on the third morn¬ 
ing she found that Ailill was cured of his sickness, and 
when Eochaid came back from his progress, he was 
pleased with his wife that she had been gracious to Ailill. 

But Midir was resolved that he would have Etain 
again for his wife. One morning the high king went 
out upon a hill by Tara to look at the plain of Breg. 
As he looked about he saw a fair young warrior by his 
side, who had not been there the instant before. 


56 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


“I give you welcome,” said Eochaid, “though I do 
not know your name.” 

“My name is not known to you,” said the warrior. 
“I am Midir of Bri Leith.” 

“For what purpose do you come?” asked the king. 

“I have come to play a game of chess with thee,” 
replied Midir. 

Now Eochaid was very skillful at chess, so that he 
readily accepted the challenge of Midir. They played 
two games, and, since Midir did not put forth his skill, 
Eochaid won them both. He demanded heavy stakes of 
Midir: that he clear away the rocks from the plain of 
Meath, that he remove the bushes from the land around 
Tethba, that he cut down forests, and that he build a 
road across the bog of Lamrach. All of these things 
Midir did with the aid of his fairy hosts. 

After Midir had done all the things that Eochaid 
had asked, he demanded that they play one more game 
of chess. The stake of this last game was to be set by 
the winner. In that game Eochaid was defeated. 

“What stake do you wish from me?” Eochaid asked. 

“That I may hold Etain in my arms and obtain one 
kiss from her,” said Midir. 

Eochaid could not refuse, but, wishing to postpone, 
and if possible prevent, the fulfillment of the bargain, 


57 



HARPER AND BARD 


he said, “Come to my stronghold one week from today 
and you shall get what you request.” 

Now Midir had been wooing Etain secretly all this 
time, but she had refused to go with him back to 
the fairy world. She had said that she would go with 
him only if Eochaid permitted her to do so. She was 
sure that her husband loved her too much to allow her 
to leave him. 

At the end of the month Eochaid called together his 
warriors at Tara. They guarded the palace without 
and filled the hall within. The king was with Etain in 
the midst of the warriors. The door of the hall was 
bolted. Yet, when the time came, Midir appeared in 
the midst of the crowded hall. 

“I have come for my promise,” he said. Then he 
placed his right arm about Etain and rose with her 
through the smoke-hole in the roof of the great hall. 
When the warriors rushed out to capture the abductor 
they saw only two swans flying about the palace. They 
watched the swans fly off, and the way that they took 
was the way to the fairy mound of Femun. 

Then Eochaid dug up each of the fairy mounds of 
Ireland that he might get his wife back again. The 
hosts of Midir fought long and bitterly against him. 
Once Midir sent sixty women all in the shape of Etain, 


58 



THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE 


and Eochaid chose one of them. When he found that 
he had been deceived, he returned again to sack Bri 
Leith. But this time Etain herself came to him, and he 
bore her away to Tara, where she lived with him all 
of her life. 

From the time of the Milesians, the history of Ireland 
emerges somewhat from the shadowland of misty legend. 
The hero tales of the Milesians, who are the Celts of his¬ 
tory, have usually some basis of fact. Whether there 
is any truth at all in any of the tales of the mythological 
cycle, or whether they were born in the imaginations of 
the poets, will probably never be known, yet the heroes 
and heroines of both the mythological and the heroic 
stories have left their names all over Ireland. Their 
battles, their harbors, their homes, and the marks of 
their passing are immortalized in the place names of the 
fords, mounds, and plains of the island. 

According to tradition the events of the mythological 
cycle were followed by those of the Ulster, or Red Branch, 
cycle, which corresponds in Ireland to the legends of the 
Round Table in England and on the Continent. 


X 


59 



FOUR 


THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


TALES OF THE RED BRANCH WARRIORS OF ULSTER 
“My spouse is the hound of Cullin, and not a 
hound that is feeble; 

A brave and valiant hero, like a fury he fights 
in the tumult, 

Dexterous of aim and agile, and quick and sure 
at the hunting; 

And find ye a man among men folk, a mould 
that may match with Cu Chullin” 

The Boast of Cu Chullin s Wife , Emer 

K ING CONCHOBAR, according to the Irish 
annals, ruled in Ulster about the beginning of 
the Christian era. He had his capital at Emain Macha, 
just west of the site of the present town of Navan. There 
he gathered about him a company of heroes called 
the Red Branch, said to have been named from the 
building where they kept the captured weapons and 
heads of their slain enemies. 

Among this company of heroes was Cu Chullin, son 


60 




THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


of the king’s sister, Dechtire. Next to him in feats of 
arms was Conall Cernach, his friend and companion. 
Fergus mac Roigh, a good-natured giant of a man, who 
had been tricked out of the kingship of Ulster by Con- 
chobar, was also a friend of Cu Chullin. 

Most of the heroic stories of the Red Branch warriors 
center around Cu Chullin, but there is one which, al¬ 
though not about him, is so famous that it must be 
told here. It is the tragic tale of Deirdre, the third of 
the “three sorrows of story-telling.” 

v P 

The Fate of the Children of Usnach 

King Conchobar and his Red Branch warriors went 
to a feast at the house of Feidlimed, who was chief 
story-teller to the king. As they sat in Feidlimed’s hall, 
word was brought to them that the wife of Feidlimed 
had given birth to a daughter. The child was brought 
in for them to see. She was very lovely even then. But 
Cathbad, the druid, took the baby and said, “Her name 
shall be called Deirdre, which means trouble, for woe 
shall be upon her.” 

The men of Ulster demanded that the child be killed, 
but Conchobar said, “Not so! She shall be reared in 
my house, and when she is grown she shall be my wife.” 

Conchobar was a man of middle age even then, and 


61 



HARPER AND BARD 


his wife, Medb, had left him years before and had married 
Aillil, the king of Connacht. 

The warriors could not turn Conchobar from his pur¬ 
pose. The baby was taken to a house apart from the 
court. There she was cared for by Levorcham, a slave 
woman. She was permitted to see no man save her tutor 
until she should be the king’s wife. She grew to be the 
fairest maiden in all Ireland. Blue were her eyes, yellow 
her hair, and her teeth were like a shower of pearls in 
her mouth. 

It happened on a day when Deirdre was fourteen that 
snow lay upon the ground, for it was winter, and her 
tutor killed a calf beneath her window. The blood of 
the calf ran out upon the snow and a raven flew down 
from a tree and drank of the blood. Then Deirdre cried 
to her nurse, “Such a man could I love and him only, 
who has the three colors yonder—his hair like the raven, 
his cheeks like the blood, and his body like the snow.” 

Levorcham was surprised that she should think of such 
a man, for the knowledge of all men save the king had 
been kept from her. “You have described Naisi, one of 
the three sons of Usnach,” she said. 

“Then go and find him,” pleaded the maiden, “and 
tell him how much greater my love is for him than for 
King Conchobar.” 


62 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


“Tell him yourself, if you can,” said Levorcham. But 
she went out and sought Naisi until she found him, and 
he came to Deirdre’s dwelling at the beginning of the 
night, without her tutor’s knowledge. 

When Naisi saw the beauty of the maiden, he was 
filled with a flood of love for her. She begged him to 
take her and escape from Ireland, but Naisi thought of 
the prophecy of Cathbad and of the anger of Conchobar, 
so that he was afraid. But Deirdre won him in spite of 
his fears. 

In the middle of the next night Naisi, with his two 
brothers, Ardan and Ainle along with him, came and 
lifted the girl over the wall of her house and carried her 
off. Long were they pursued by Conchobar, until at 
length they entered a ship and were driven to the coast 
of Scotland. 

They took shelter there with the king of Scotland and 
served him well in war. They made themselves houses 
near the king’s dwelling, where they placed Deirdre for 
fear that men might see her and slay them on her account. 
For it was the fate of Deirdre that her beauty should 
bring trouble to all those she loved, just as Cathbad had 
prophesied. 

The king saw Deirdre and desired her for his wife, so 
that he gathered together the men of Scotland to destroy 


63 



HARPER AND BARD 


the sons of Usnach. But Deirdre warned her husband 
and they fled away in the night and took refuge on an 
island of the sea. 

When Conchobar heard of the trouble of the sons of 
Usnach, he determined to send to them and invite them 
back to Ireland so that he might kill them and have 
Deirdre for his wife as he had planned. He sent Fergus 
mac Roigh with a pledge of friendship and safety to Naisi 
and his brothers. When Fergus landed on the island 
he sent forth a great cry. Naisi and Deirdre were sitting 
in their hunting booth playing chess when the call came. 

Naisi lifted his head and listened, and said, “I hear 
the call of a man of Erin.” 

“That is not the call of a man of Erin,” said Deirdre, 
“but the call of a man of Scotland.” 

Two times Fergus called, and both times Deirdre 
insisted that it was not the cry of a man of Ireland. 
At last Naisi recognized the voice of Fergus, his friend, 
and sent his brother to greet him. Then Deirdre told 
Naisi that she had known the voice of Fergus from the 
beginning. 

“Why did you conceal it then, my queen?” asked 
Naisi of his wife. 

“I had a vision last night,” said Deirdre. “Three birds 
came to us from Emain having three sups of honey in 


64 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


their beaks, and they left them with us, but they took 
with them three sups of our blood.” 

All of Deirdre’s pleadings were of no avail. The sons 
of Usnach were homesick for the sight of Ireland once 
more, and with Fergus’s pledge of safety they were not 
afraid to return. In the morning they set sail, while 
Deirdre wept and sang a lament for leaving the land 
where she had been happy. 

Fergus mac Roigh was under a taboo never to refuse 
an invitation to a feast. The king knew of this taboo, 
and he caused Barach, an Ulster warrior, to ask Fergus 
to remain at his home for a feast while Deirdre and the 
sons of Usnach went on to Emain Macha without him. 
As they came near the king’s palace terrible dreams and 
visions troubled Deirdre. She saw a blood-red cloud 
over the palace. With all her power she urged her 
husband and his brothers to wait for Fergus or to turn 
aside to the home of Cu Chullin for safety. But they 
could not be persuaded that treachery was planned 
against them. 

When they reached Emain Macha, they were sent to 
the house of the Red Branch and not to the king’s own 
palace where the warriors were gathered. In the night 
the king sent Levorcham to see how Deirdre looked. The 
old nurse knew of the evil that was planned and brought 


65 



HARPER AND BARD 


back the story that Deirdre had wholly lost her beauty. 
But the king thought of her a second time and sent a 
man-servant. The sons of Usnach had shut and barri¬ 
caded the windows and doors of the Red Branch, but 
the man climbed up to a small opening in the back and 
looked down upon Naisi and Deirdre playing chess. 
Naisi saw the face looking at them and hurled a chessman 
at it so fiercely that it broke one of the man’s eyes. The 
servant ran back to Conchobar and told him that is was 
worth losing an eye to behold such beauty. 

Then Conchobar was mad with drink and desire for 
Deirdre, so that he forgot the giving of his word and 
sent his forces under the leadership of Eoghan against 
the Red Branch. All night long the battle stormed. The 
sons of Usnach with the help of Fergus’s sons repelled 
the attack and put out the fires that were set to the building. 
In the morning one of the sons of Fergus accepted a 
bribe of lands and cattle to desert Naisi. But still the 
forces of Conchobar could not prevail, until Cathbad, the 
same druid that had given Deirdre her name, made a 
spell against them. When Deirdre and the three brothers 
were escaping from the Red Branch, which by morning 
was almost half burned down, they were met by magic 
waves, so that they threw down their weapons and tried 
to swim. Then the soldiers of Conchobar captured them. 


66 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


Cathbad had made Conchobar swear that if he worked 
the spell against the sons of Usnach no harm would be 
done to them. The king had promised; but, when they 
were brought before him, so great was his hate that he 
commanded that they be at once beheaded, all three with 
one sword stroke. Then the druid cursed Emain Macha 
and the house of Conchobar. He said that the palace 
should be burned to the ground, that woe should fall upon 
the province of Ulster, and that no son of Conchobar 
should ever rule after him. And that curse was fulfilled, 
for Fergus burned the palaces of Emain in his wrath 
at having been tricked by Conchobar; woe fell upon the 
province in the wars with Connacht; and no descendant 
of Conchobar ever ruled in Ulster. 

Deirdre tore herself away from the men who were 
guarding her and uttered a lament over the grave of 
Naisi. She sang: 

“The lions of the hill are gone 
And 1 am left alone — alone — 

Dig the grave both wide and deep, 

For I am sick and fain would sleep. 

“Woe to me! By fraud and wrong, 

Traitors false and tyrants strong, 

Fell Clan Usnach, bought and sold, 

Through Barach’s feast and Conor s gold. 

67 



HARPER AND BARD 


“Woe to Emain, roof and wall! 

Woe to Red Branch, hearth and hall! 

Tenfold woe and black dishonor 
To the foul and false Clan Conor! 

“Dig the grave both wide and deep, 

Sick I am and fain would sleep! 

Dig the grave and make it ready, 

Lay me on my true-love 3 s body. 33 

As she finished the lament she fell into the grave where 
the three sons of Usnach were buried and died upon their 
bodies. 

This is the end of the tragic tale of Deirdre as the 
recent story-tellers tell it, but there is another tale which the 
older bards know that is even more terrible. They say 
that after the murder of Naisi, Deirdre was seized by the 
men of Ulster, and her hands bound behind her back, and 
that she was then taken before King Conchobar, who 
forced her to live with him for a year as his wife. During 
that year she neither smiled nor laughed, nor did she ever 
raise her head from her knee. 

At the end of the year the king was tired of such 
a wife, so that he came to her and said, “What is it that 
you hate most in the world?” 

“Thou thyself, and after thee, Eoghan, son of Dur- 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


thacht,” said Deirdre. (Eoghan had led the attack on 
the Red Branch the night that Naisi had held it.) 

“You shall be given to Eoghan for a year then,” said 
Conchobar. He bound her hands and placed her in a 
chariot between himself and Eoghan. As she stood in 
the chariot she would not look at either of the two men, 
but kept her eyes on the ground. 

“It is the glance of an ewe between two rams you cast 
between Eoghan and me,” said Conchobar. 

There was a great rock near by. She leaped from the 
chariot, dashed her head against that rock and was dead. 

This is the fate of the sons of Usnach, and the cause 
of the exile of Fergus and of the death of Deirdre. 

Fergus mac Roigh came from Barach’s feast to find 
that his pledged word had been broken by the king. 
He was so angry that he gathered all his followers, fell 
upon Emain Macha, and burned it to the ground with 
great slaughter of the king’s warriors. Then Fergus took 
his army and went to Connacht, where he entered the 
service of Queen Medb, and many Ulster warriors went 
with him. In the great cattle raid of Cuailnge, often called 
the cattle raid of Cooley, they fought against their former 
Ulster friends. 

The tale of Deirdre is still popular among the people 


69 



HARPER AND BARD 


of Ireland, where it has been used as the basis of many 
poems and plays. But it is time now to turn to Cu Chullin, 
the hero of the most thrilling of the romantic tales. 
p p 

The Birth of Cu Chullin 

Dechtire, the sister of King Conchobar of Ulster, 
together with fifty of her maids, went away without the 
knowledge of her brother. The king searched for three 
years, but no trace of them was found. At the end of 
that time a flock of birds came to visit a field near the 
king’s palace at Emain Macha. They devoured the 
herbage of the field, even to the roots of the grass under 
the ground. The men of Ulster were angry at seeing 
them destroy the grass. Accordingly they harnessed nine 
chariots in order to hunt the birds, for hunting birds was 
a custom in Ulster. 

The birds flew before them all day. The chariots 
followed, for there were no stone or earth walls in Ireland 
then, nothing but smooth fields. Beautiful and lovely 
was the bird flock and the bird song which accompanied 
it. In front of the whole band were two birds separated 
from the rest. They flew ahead of the chariots to the 
borders of the province. Then night came and a heavy 
snow fell. Conchobar ordered his attendants to unhitch 
the horses from the chariots and sent Fergus to search 


70 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


for a house where they might find food and shelter for 
the night. 

After some time Fergus came upon a little dwelling 
where a man and woman gave him welcome. He thought 
that the place was too small for the company, but when 
they came inside there was room for all. When they had 
eaten, Bricriu of the Poison Tongue, the trouble maker, 
went out from the house and heard the sound of sweet 
melody. He followed the sound and found that it came 
from a mansion not far away. There he was met by a 
handsome warrior who bade him welcome. 

“Have you missed anyone from Emain Macha?” the 
warrior asked. 

“We have, indeed,” replied Bricriu. “Fifty young 
maidens have been lost to us for three years.” 

“The fifty young maidens are here,” said the young 
man, “and with them is Dechtire, who has been my wife. 
They were changed into birds that they might fly to 
Emain Macha to draw the Ulstermen hither.” 

The young warrior was the god Lugh the Long 
Handed. When Bricriu returned the king asked him 
what he had seen. He told of the mansion and in it the 
group of women richly dressed, one of them a princess 
of truly royal bearing. In the morning the king went 
to see the mansion, but found nothing but a hut and 


71 



HARPER AND BARD 


in it a baby boy, just bom. Then Bricriu explained that 
the boy was the son of Dechtire. They wrapped the baby 
warmly and took him home to Emain Macha. He was 
given the name Setanta, but later he won for himself the 
name Cu Chullin, which means “the Hound of Cullan.” 
p ? 

The story of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, or Cattle Raid of 
Cooley, is the great epic of ancient Ireland. It is found 
in several of the oldest manuscripts and was written down 
as early perhaps as the seventh century. Cooley is a 
district of Ulster lying in the present county of Louth. 
Today it is a manufacturing district, one of the most 
prosaic parts of Ireland. 

The story of how the Tain came to be written down 
is as follows: 


The Writing of the Tain 
According to the annals of the Four Masters, Guaire 
Aidhne, son of Colman, was king of Connacht in the 
middle of the seventh century. It was said of him that 
he was so hospitable that his right hand had grown longer 
than his left from constant giving. Because of his repu¬ 
tation for good entertainment, the Bardic Institution, or 
company of the poets of Ireland, came to visit Guaire. 
Seanchan was chief poet of Ireland at the time. He 


72 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


took with him to Connacht one hundred and fifty bards, 
one hundred and fifty students, one hundred and fifty 
men servants and the same number of women servants, 
together with hounds and female relatives. Guaire 
welcomed the great company and led them to a dwelling 
which he had caused to be built for their special use. His 
servants laid a feast before them and the king assured 
them that whatever they desired they might ask for and 
they should have it. 

Each night a member of the company made an ex¬ 
traordinary wish. They wished for blackberries and straw¬ 
berries when the season was winter; they wished for 
garments of spider’s web, for pet cuckoos, for a meal of 
the fat of a water blackbird, and other strange desires. 
All of these Guaire procured for them with the help of 
his brother Marvan, who lived in the woods as a swineherd, 
but who was a magician as well. In order to fulfill one 
of the wishes Marvan was forced to kill his own pet 
white boar. 

Because of the loss of his boar Marvan planned to have 
revenge on the Bardic Institution. He came to the house 
that Guaire had built for them and asked them for 
entertainment. They sang for him until they could sing 
no more. Then one of the bards said, “I am the best 
story-teller in Ireland. I will tell a story for thee.” 


73 



HARPER AND BARD 


“If thou art the best story-teller in Erin,” said Marvan, 
“thou knowest the principal stories of Erin.” 

“I do indeed,” replied the poet. 

“Well, then,” said Marvan, “relate to me the Tain Bo 
Cuailnge.” 

Silence seized the story-teller and Seanchan reproved 
him for it. “What are you about,” said he, “in not 
telling the story to Marvan?” 

“Have patience, O chief poet,” said the bard. “I have 
not heard that the Tain was ever written in Erin, nor 
do I remember it all.” 

At this Seanchan was silent, for he did not know all 
of the Tain. Then Marvan put them under a taboo not 
to stay more than two nights in one place, nor to compose 
more than one poem until they found the Tain. Thus he 
planned to free his brother of the great company. 

There was a tradition that the Tain had been taken 
into Scotland, so that the bards journeyed to that country 
to search. They traveled across Scotland from the north 
to the south and from the east to the west, and remained 
there a year, but they found no tidings of the Tain. 
Seanchan was troubled because of their failure and turned 
his face again to Ireland. 

They were met there by St. Caillin, the brother of 
Seanchan. With him they proceeded to visit Marvan 


74 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


to tell him of their failure and to ask him who could 
relate to them the story of the Tain. 

“There is no man living in Erin who can tell it to you,” 
said Marvan, “nor is there any man among the dead who 
can relate the Tain, save one man only.” 

“Who is that one person?” asked Seanchan. 

“Fergus mac Roigh,” replied Marvan, “for it was he 
who had knowledge of the exploits of the men of Erin and 
of Ulster in the Tain, as it was his own pupil Cu Chullin 
who carried it on.” 

Then Marvan directed them to send messages to all 
the saints of Ireland to come to the tomb of Fergus. 
There they were to fast for three days and three nights 
and pray that God would send the spirit of Fergus to 
them to tell them the story of the Tain. Caillin went 
forth and brought seven saints to the tomb. They feasted 
for one night; then they fasted and prayed for three nights, 
and the spirit of Fergus appeared to them. At first the 
warrior did not wish to sit down in the company of the 
saints, but they persuaded him, so that he told the story 
of the Tain seated upon his own grave. 

There was no parchment at hand to write down the tale 
as Fergus spoke it, and the saints were afraid that they 
would forget parts of it. St. Ciaran killed his pet brown 
cow, and he and St. Caillin wrote the story on the hide 


75 



HARPER AND BARD 


as Fergus spoke it. That is how the story of the Tain Bo 
Cuailnge came to be written down in the book called the 
“Book of the Dun Cow” 

? e 

The Tain Bo Cuailnge 

THE PILLOW TALK 

One night when Ailill and Medb, king and queen of 
Connacht, had spread their royal bed, an argument came 
up between them as to which had the greater riches. In 
the morning, to settle the matter, they counted over all 
their possessions. They counted their pails and their 
cauldrons, their jugs and their iron vessels, and found 
that each had the same number. They counted their 
rings and apparel, their flocks of sheep, their horses, their 
droves of swine. All these were equal in value. 

It was not until they came to number over their cattle 
that a difference was found. Among the herds of Ailill 
was a special bull called Finnebennach, the White-horned. 
He was a calf of one of Medb’s cows, but he had gone 
over to the herds of the king, for he did not think it fitting 
for such a bull as he to be under the rule of a woman. 

Then Medb sent for Mac Roth, the messenger, and 
bade him go through all the provinces of Erin to find 
another bull as great as the Finnebennach. 

“Verily,” said Mac Roth, “I know where the bull is 


76 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


that is best and better again, in the province of Ulster, 
in the district of Cuailnge, in the house of Dare; even 
Donn Cuailnge, he is called.” 

“Go thou and ask Dare for the loan of the Brown Bull 
of Cuailnge, and at the year’s end he shall have the bull 
back again with fifty heifers. If the border folk be 
unwilling to part with the bull let Dare himself come 
with it, and I will give him a measure of the smooth land 
of Mag Ai as large as his own lands and a chariot of 
the worth of seven bond-maids,” commanded the queen. 

Mac Roth went with nine companions to visit Dare 
and told him of the queen’s offer, at which he was very 
joyful and promised to deliver the bull into the land of 
Connacht. But when the companions of Mac Roth were 
in drink that night, they boasted that if Dare had not 
given up the bull willingly it would have been taken by 
force. When this speech was repeated to Dare he was 
wrathful. “I swear by the gods my people swear by,” 
he said, “they shall in no wise take by foul means what 
they cannot take by fair.” 

In the morning when Mac Roth came to take the bull 
he was refused. Back then went the messengers to Medb, 
who was at Cruachan, the stronghold of Connacht. Mac 
Roth told her how the dispute arose. 

“Then,” declared Medb, “if the Brown Bull of Cuailnge 


77 



HARPER AND BARD 


is not taken with their will, he will be taken against their 
will, for taken he shall be.” 

It must be known that these were no common bulls. 
They were so broad of back that fifty boys might play 
their evening games between the horns; their bellow- 
ings struck terror into the hearts of all who heard them. 
It was said that they were the last of a series of transforma¬ 
tions and rebirths of two fairy swineherds. 

p p 

As soon as she was resolved to go to war against Ulster, 
Medb began to gather her troops for the fray. First 
she went to visit her druid to find out if she should return 
safely from the conflict. The druid said to her, “Whoever 
returns not, thou thyself shalt return.” But as she was 
going home from the druid’s dwelling she saw a maiden 
standing on the shaft of her chariot. This was Fedelm, 
a maiden out of a fairy mound, and Medb asked her 
what would be the fate of her army on its invasion of 
Ulster. Three times the fairy gave the same reply: 

“Crimson-red with blood are they; 

I behold them bathed in red” 

When Medb pressed her for more details she sang a 
song about Cu Chullin and the part he would have. 

“All your hosts hell smite in twain, 

Till he works your utter ruin.” 


78 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


The warning of the fairy maiden did not deter Medb 
from her course, and she set to work immediately to gather 
her army. She persuaded the kings of Leinster and 
Munster to join her. Fergus mac Roigh and fifteen 
hundred Ulster warriors also formed part of her army. 
They had never forgiven King Conchobar for his treachery 
in killing the sons of Usnach. Fergus himself, because 
he was familiar with the country which they were to invade, 
was placed at the head of Medb’s troops. She promised 
her lovely daughter Finnabar in marriage to no less than 
twelve kings in order to get their help on the Tain. 

When her army was gathered together Medb set out 
for Ulster. Her spies had brought word that the men 
of Ulster were all in bed with a sickness. This ail¬ 
ment came upon them periodically as punishment for a 
cruel wrong they had done to Macha, a fairy goddess. 

The Connacht army crossed the river Shannon at the 
present town of Athlone and came to thick forests near 
the present Kells. There they had to cut a path for 
their chariots. They camped that night on the borders 
of Ulster. 

Cu Chullin hid himself during the day, but came out 
at night and killed one hunared of Medb’s soldiers. Two 
guards were placed at the ford to watch for him. When 
he found them he cut ofl their heads and those of their 


79 



HARPER AND BARD 


charioteers, stuck them up on poles at the ford, and sent 
the chariots, bearing the headless bodies dripping blood, 
back to Medb. 

The queen asked Fergus that night about this seventeen- 
year-old youth who was able to perform such feats. Fergus 
and others of the Ulstermen who were with Medb’s army 
spent the night telling her about the boyish deeds of 
Cu Chullin. There is not space here to tell of the many 
deeds that the hero did in his boyhood: of how he defeated 
the boy troop of Ulster singlehanded; of how he took 
arms on the day he was seven years old and slew the three 
sons of Nachta Scene; of how he caught the wild deer in 
the marshes, tied them to his chariot, and brought them 
home alive to Emain Macha; of how he got his famous 
horses, the Grey of Macha and the Black of Sainglenn, 
out of the lochs of Ireland and tamed them in one night 
of circling around Ireland. But there is one of the boyish 
deeds, which, because it explains how he got his name, 
should be told here: 

e p 

The Slaying of the Smith's Hound 

A smith of Ulster was called Cullan. One night he 
made a feast for King Conchobar and his warriors. When 
the king was setting out in his chariot for the feast he 
passed the boys playing and invited little Setanta to 


80 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


go with him. The boy refused, because they were not 
yet done with their game. 

“There is no need for you to wait,” he said. “I will 
follow the track of the chariots.” 

Conchobar and his men went on to the smith’s house, 
where a great feast had been prepared for them. They 
ate and drank and were merry, so that they forgot that 
the boy had said he would come after them. 

Cullan, the smith, said to the king, “Will there be 
anyone else of your people coming after you tonight?” 

The king said that there would not be. He had 
forgotten the coming of Setanta. 

“I have a great hound,” explained the smith, “and 
when I take the chain off him, he will let no one come into 
my land, and he has the strength of a hundred.” 

When the boys at Emain Macha were through playing, 
Setanta started out to follow the trail of the chariots. 
He came to the land of Cullan and the great hound 
rushed at him as if to swallow him in one mouthful. 
The lad had not any means of defense, but he threw his 
ball straight down the beast’s red throat, and grasping 
the great hind legs, dashed the hound’s brains out against 
a stone. The men at the feast heard the yelping of the 
great dog and were afraid. 

“Alas, O warriors,” cried Conchobar, “in no good luck 


81 



HARPER AND BARD 


have we come here to enjoy this feast. My sister’s son, 
who has come to meet me, is undone through this hound.” 

As one man, arose all the renowned men of Ulster. 
Fergus arrived first and set the boy, all unharmed, on his 
shoulder, and so brought him to Conchobar. 

But Cullan was grieved at the slaughter of his hound. 
“Welcome thy coming, little lad,” he said, “for the sake 
of thy father and thy mother, but not for thyself. Good 
was the friend thou hast robbed me of. He was the 
protection of our cattle, both at home and afield.” 

“Be not angered thereat, O Cullan, my master,” said 
the boy. “If there is a puppy of this dog in Erin he shall 
be reared by me till he be fit to do the business as was 
his sire. Until then myself will be thy hound.” 

“Well hast thou given judgment, little lad,” said 
Cathbad, the druid. “From this thou shalt take the 
name of Cu Chullin, the Hound of Cullan.” 

“I like better my own name, Setanta, son of Sualtam,” 
answered the boy. 

“Say not so, lad,” Cathbad continued, “for the men 
of Erin and of Scotland shall hear that name, and their 
mouths shall be full of the praise of that name.” 

P P 

The queen offered gold to Cu Chullin if he would join 
the forces of Connacht. When that failed, she offered 


82 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


to give him the beautiful Finnabar in marriage, but that 
only roused the hero’s contempt. He sent a message 
by Fergus mac Roigh that he would stop the night killings 
if she would send one warrior each day to meet him in 
single combat at the ford. During the time these combats 
were going on the Connacht army was to remain in camp. 

This was a fair offer according to the ancient rules of 
Irish chivalry, and Queen Medb thought that it would 
be better to lose one man a day than a hundred each night; 
so she agreed to the conditions. Thus every day but 
three from the first of November to the first of February 
Cu Chullin fought a combat at the ford. He always 
killed his foe. The warriors of Connacht became so afraid 
of him that Queen Medb had to offer them bribes. 

There is not space to tell of all the combats at the ford, 
but some are of special interest. 

The Combats at the Ford 
On the day that Fergus came to the ford to make the 
terms regarding the single combats, a proud young warrior 
named Etarcumal came with him to look at Cu Chullin. 
When Fergus had returned to the camp of Medb, Etar¬ 
cumal stayed behind to taunt Cu Chullin. Now Cu 
Chullin had no desire to fight with the young man, 
because he had come with Fergus, but he had no choice. 


83 



HARPER AND BARD 


He took his sword and cut away the sod from under 
the feet of Etarcumal, so that he was stretched out on 
his back like a sack. Still the young man would not 
return to his camp. Cu Chullin then gave a well aimed 
sword stroke and sheared his hair from off his head from 
one ear to the other. 

“Hold, fellow, get thee home now,” said Cu Chullin, 
“for I have made a laughing stock of thee.” 

“I will not go,” said Etarcumal, “until I take thy head 
or thou takest mine.” 

Then Cu Chullin severed his body in four pieces with 
two sword strokes. This was the first of the fights at 
the ford. 

In turn Cu Chullin fought with and killed: Nathcran- 
tail, the father of four and twenty sons; Cur, son of 
Da Loth, whom he killed by throwing an apple through 
his head; the six princes hired to be bodyguard to Queen 
Medb, who came against him all at once, contrary to the 
agreement; Redg, the queen’s jester; Ferbaeth, his own 
old comrade in arms; and a great many others. 

The goddess of war, Morrigu, came to Cu Chullin 
and offered him her love, but he refused it, so that from 
that time on she worked evil against him in his combats. 
During the fight at the ford with Loich she changed 
herself into a cow and drove a herd of fifty heifers across 


84 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


the ford. Then she made herself into a great eel and 
twisted herself about Cu Chullin’s legs, so that Loich 
wounded his breast while he was freeing himself. She 
came in the form of a grey wolf; while he was fighting 
with the wolf, Loich wounded his side. 

Then Cu Chullin called for his charioteer Laeg, who 
was with him through all his battles, to bring him the 
Gae-Bulga. The Gae-Bulga was a spear that went into 
the body at one point, but when it was in the body it 
opened out into many points. This weapon had been 
given to Cu Chullin by his teacher Scathach, when he 
was learning feats of arms in Scotland. He thrust the 
Gae-Bulga into the breast of Loich. It pierced his heart, 
and he knew that he was dying. He made a last request 
of Cu Chullin, that he be allowed to fall with his face 
to the east, so that no man could say that it was in fear 
or in flight that he died. Cu Chullin stepped back, and 
Loich fell on his face and his soul departed. 

For many months Cu Chullin had no sleep, save such 
as he could get while leaning on his spear. There came 
a day when he was bleeding from many wounds and very 
weary. He was about to get into his chariot to make one 
last attack on the Connacht army and to die fighting, for 
he was sure that he would be killed by the next man who 
fought him at the ford, so weary was he, when Laeg saw 

85 



HARPER AND BARD 


the figure of a tall man coming through the enemy’s camp. 
Straight through Medb’s army the man walked, but no 
one seemed to be aware of his passing. 

“Who art thou?” asked Cu Chullin wearily. 

“Thy father from fairyland am I, Lugh. Heavy are 
the bloody wounds upon thee. Sleep thou a while, and 
for three days and three nights I will guard the ford.” 
And he sang a lullaby that cast Cu Chullin into a deep 
sleep. While Cu Chullin slept his father laid healing 
herbs upon his wounds, so that he recovered from them 
and woke with the strength of twenty men. 

During those three days of his sleep, one hundred and 
fifty boys of Ulster, led by Conchobar’s son Follomain, 
came to do battle with Medb’s army. They had only 
their boy weapons with which to fight. Three times their 
number of Connachtmen fell at their hands in that fight, 
but not one of the boys escaped alive. When Cu Chullin 
awoke and learned of the slaughter of the boy army, he 
called for his scythed war-chariot, donned his finest war 
garments, and drove against the host of Connacht. 

At this time, on account of his great anger did Cu 
Chullin’s distortion occur. One eye sank into his head; 
the other sprang forth on his cheek the size of five fists. 
His mouth was twisted up to his ears; his knees shifted 
so that they came behind him; the sinews of his neck 


86 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


became as large as the head of a child. His hair stood 
out in spikes around his head, and a great red fire 
surrounded him. The heat of his body was so great that 
it melted the snow for thirty feet in every direction. 

He drove six times through the army of Medb, and at 
each circuit he left the bodies of the slain piled six deep. 
Thus did Cu Chullin avenge the slaughter of the youths. 

Only once did Cu Chullin spare the life of a warrior 
who fought against him at the ford. As the winter went 
on, Medb found it harder and harder to get warriors 
to fight with him. She promised each of them Finnabar 
for his wife if he should win, and made them drunk with 
wine to give them courage. This she did to Larine mac 
Nois, the brother of Lugaid, who was a friend and foster- 
brother of Cu Chullin. She hoped that if Cu Chullin 
killed Larine it would inflame Lugaid against him, for 
she thought that Lugaid could kill Cu Chullin. Lugaid 
understood the plot of Medb and went to Cu Chullin. 

“They have persuaded a brother of mine to come and 
fight thee on the morrow, to wit, a foolish, dull, uncouth 
youth, dealing stout blows. Slay not my brother, lest 
thou leave me brotherless.” 

“Kill him I will not,” cried Cu Chullin, “but the next 
thing to death will I do to him.” 

When Larine reached the ford in the morning Cu 


87 



HARPER AND BARD 


Chullin brushed his weapons aside, seized him in his arms 
and squeezed and shook him until the air was filled with 
dust. Then from the middle of the ford Cu Chullin 
hurled Larine far from him across the camp until he fell 
at his brother’s door. From that time forth Larine never 
got up without a groan; he never lay down without a hurt; 
and he never ate without a pain. 

As the winter wore on, Medb broke her promise to 
Cu Chullin and sent often as many as twenty men against 
him at once. He killed them all and never gave way 
himself until he fled before Fergus rather than fight with 
his old friend. When he fled from Fergus the army of 
Medb marched across the ford and camped in Ulster. 
But by now the weakness of the Ulstermen had left them 
and they gathered to do battle against the army of 
Connacht. One last fight, the worst of all, did Cu Chullin 
fight with his own comrade in arms, Ferdiad. 

Fergus came the night before to warn Cu Chullin that 
Ferdiad was coming to fight with him the next day. 
Cu Chullin was sorrowful, for he had been a fellow student 
with Ferdiad in Scotland. Ferdiad loved Cu Chullin also, 
and said to his charioteer that he would rather die by the 
hand of Cu Chullin than that Cu Chullin should fall by 
his hand. But Ferdiad had given his promise to Medb 
and could not break it. 


88 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


On the first day Ferdiad had the choice of weapons, 
for he had been the first to reach the ford. He chose to 
fight with spears and javelins. When the night came the 
two heroes gave their weapons to their charioteers and 
kissed each other three times in memory of old friendship. 
Ferdiad sent food and drink across the ford to Cu Chullin, 
while Cu Chullin sent healing herbs to Ferdiad. 

The second day the choice of weapons fell to Cu 
Chullin. That day he chose to fight with lances and 
in chariots. They each made such great wounds in 
the bodies of the other that the birds could have flown 
through the holes. Again that night they exchanged 
gifts across the ford, but their wounds were too great to 
be healed, even with the fairy herbs sent by the father of 
Cu Chullin. 

The third day’s fighting was with swords. Neither one 
gained the advantage. The fourth day decided the 
conflict. Each of the warriors tried new feats they had 
invented for the occasion. So fierce was the fighting that 
the river was forced out of its bed. So close was the 
fighting that Cu Chullin’s fairy friends came to take part 
in it, and one of them was killed by Ferdiad. At last 
Cu Chullin sent for the Gae-Bulga. He threw it with 
all his might. It split the breastplate of Ferdiad, and 
opened with a hundred barbs in his body, so that he died. 

89 



HARPER AND BARD 


Then Cu Chullin carried the body over the ford to his 
own side and made a lament over his dead friend. The 
hurt of his own wounds was so great that when he had 
finished singing he fell in a faint at the side of Ferdiad. 
This was the last of the great combats at the ford. 
v v 

The Ending of the Tain 
Cu Chullin had pretended to flee when Fergus came 
to fight him at the ford. The two warriors had made a 
bargain that if Cu Chullin would retreat from Fergus at 
the ford, then Fergus would flee from Cu Chullin some¬ 
time when he needed it. This was the reason that Fergus 
fled with his army in the great battle of the Tain, and 
the reason for the defeat of the forces of Queen Medb. 

As has been seen, the great host had crossed the ford 
into Ulster. The men of Ulster rose from their sickbeds 
and gathered to protect their province. Bands of troops 
led by all the great warriors of Ulster gathered at Garich 
upon the plain of Meath. The messenger of Queen Medb, 
Mac Roth, watched them come and brought word to the 
queen. Fergus told the queen the name of the leader of 
each troop by Mac Roth’s description of their dress and 
armor. Fergus had been an Ulster man himself before 
he left the province in anger at the treachery of King 
Conchobar to the sons of Usnach. 


90 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


But Fergus was a mighty warrior for Connacht in that 
battle. Three times he drove the Ulster forces back until 
King Conchobar himself hurried northward to see what 
was the cause of the retreat. Then the enemies met face 
to face after many bitter years. Fergus smote three 
tremendous blows upon the shield of Conchobar, so that 
the shield screamed and the waves of the sea answered. 

“Who holds his shield against me in this battle?” 
demanded Fergus. 

“O Fergus,” cried the evil king, “one who is greater 
than thyself, who slew the three sons of Usnach in spite 
of thy promise of protection, who banished thee out of 
thy lands and made of them a dwelling place for foxes, 
who will drive thee back to the entertainment of the 
women of Connacht.” 

Then Fergus would certainly have slain the king, for 
he hammered his shield with mighty blows, if Cu Chullin 
had not saved Conchobar. Cu Chullin had heard the 
cries of the shield as he lay in his tent, and Laeg had 
told him that the king was being hard pressed by Fergus. 
Then Cu Chullin rose up from his sick bed, cast off the 
bandages from his wounds, and with his blood gushing 
from them in rivers, charged into the midst of the battle. 

He said to Fergus, “You did promise to flee from 
me when I should require it, even as I fled from you.” 


91 



HARPER AND BARD 


Fergus made three great strides from Cu Chullin, 
turned, and fled. As he retreated the men of Leinster 
and the men of Munster fled with him. Then Cu Chullin 
marched into the press of the battle around Queen Medb. 
It was noon when he came. By sunset none of the men 
of Connacht remained on the plain of Meath, save only 
those that were dead. 

p v 

The Battle of the Bulls 
Before the battle of Garich, Queen Medb had captured 
the Brown Bull of Cuailnge and had sent the bull with 
fifty heifers back to her palace at Cruachan in Connacht. 
When he saw the strange land he raised his head and 
bellowed, so that the sound of his bellowing rang over all 
the plains of Ireland. Finnebennach, the White-horned, 
heard him with terrible anger, for he would let no bull 
make a sound louder than a cow’s moo in his territory. 
He hastened to Cruachan to look for the daring Brown 
Bull of Cuailnge. 

Then the men who were returning from their own great 
defeat stayed to watch the fight of the bulls. They tore 
the earth so furiously that great sods flew over their 
shoulders; they rolled their eyes like lightnings. They 
fought all day, thrusting and charging and goring. That 
night the struggle of the bulls carried them all over Ireland. 


92 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


When morning came the men of Connacht saw the Brown 
Bull returning with the torn and bleeding body of 
Finnebennach on his horns. 

The men of Connacht would have killed the Brown 
Bull if Fergus had not forbidden it. “I pledge my word,” 
he cried, “what has already been done is a small thing 
in comparison with that which will now take place, unless 
with his spoils and victory you let the Brown Bull of 
Cuailnge go from you into his own land.” 

The Brown Bull went homeward, and as he went he 
shook parts of the body of Finnebennach from his horns. 
There are today places in Ireland named Bull’s Loin, and 
Bull’s Ribs, and Bull’s Hind Leg. He drank of the river 
Shannon at Athlone. When he came to his own land of 
Cuailnge there were women and children weeping for him. 
In the fury of his great rage he killed them. Then he 
turned his back to the hill and gave mad bellowings of 
triumph until his heart burst and he belched it up with 
great rivers of blood and died. 

This is the end of the Tain Bo Cuailnge. 

v v 

Cu Chullin died when he was twenty-seven years old. 
He took arms on a certain day when he was seven years 
old because Cathbad, the druid, had prophesied that 
whoever took arms on that day would be glorious and 


93 



HARPER AND BARD 


renowned, but that the life of that person would be short. 

“What care I,” cried Cu Chullin. “Little it matters 
to me if I live but a day and a night in the world, if my 
fame and my deeds live after me.” 

He went to woo the maiden Emer, daughter of Forgal, 
who lived at Lusk, near the present city of Dublin. She 
was the only girl in Ireland who could talk to him in the 
ancient poet’s language. Her father did not wish her to 
marry a warrior. He persuaded Cu Chullin to go to 
Scotland, there to learn feats of arms from the famous 
woman warrior Scathach. Here he had as fellow school¬ 
mates many of the famous heroes of Ireland. Some of 
them fought with him in the Tain, and some fought 
against him. During his stay in Scotland he helped 
Scathach defeat her rival, Aoife. But Aoife fell in love 
with Cu Chullin, and when he left Scotland he left a ring 
for his child that was to be born to her. 

Scathach gave Cu Chullin one weapon that she gave to 
no other of her pupils. That was the Gae-Bulga, which 
won for him the fight with Loich and with Ferdiad. 

Back in Ireland Cu Chullin found that Emer was a 
prisoner in her father’s dwelling. He leaped with the 
warrior’s leap over the three walls of the fortress, seized 
Emer, and sprang back into his chariot. ForgaPs 
warriors pursued him; each time they overtook him he 


94 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


stopped and killed a hundred men. So he came to Emain 
Macha, where he was wedded to Emer. 

Once only was he separated from his wife as long as 
he lived. The tale of that separation is told in “The 
Only Jealousy of Emer,” or as it is sometimes called, 
“The Sick-Bed of Cu Chullin.” The tale relates how 
the fairy goddess Fand lured Cu Chullin away to live 
with her in Mag Mell, the fairy Other World. Emer 
was jealous of the fairy and prepared to kill her. Then 
Fand saw that she must not take Cu Chullin from the love 
of Emer, and she returned to her fairy husband. 

Cu Chullin was successful in everything, but great grief 
came to him once. This is the story of that tragic grief: 


The Death of Conlach 
When Cu Chullin left Aoife in Scotland he gave her 
a gold ring and told her that if the child was a boy she 
was to keep him until his finger was large enough to fit 
the ring and then to send him to Ireland. He left three 
commands for his son. He was never to tell his name 
to any man through fear; he was never to refuse to fight 
in a single combat any warrior who came against him; 
and he was never to give way before any champion. 
In time the boy was born and named Conlach, and 


95 



HARPER AND BARD 


grew up under the teachings of his mother and Scathach, 
who were both famous warriors. When his finger was 
large enough to fit the ring he set out for Ireland to visit 
his father Cu Chullin, whom he had never seen. He 
came to Emain Macha when an assembly was taking 
place. Conchobar sent a messenger to ask the young 
man’s name, but Conlach refused to tell it. Then Cu 
Chullin went to find out who the strange youth was, but 
had no better success. Thereupon Cu Chullin was angry 
and challenged the youth to single combat. 

The fight was bloody between them, and the hero 
Cu Chullin was forced to retreat to a neighboring ford and 
to call for the Gae-Bulga. With this terrible weapon he 
killed Conlach. As the boy lay dying, Cu Chullin knelt 
by him on the sand and saw the ring on his finger. Then 
great was his grief, for he saw that he had killed his 
own son. 

Conchobar laid a heavy blood-fine upon Cu Chullin 
for the slaying of Conlach, but Cu Chullin grieved for 
his son until his death. 

v v 

The Death of Cu Chullin 

During the combats at the ford, Cu Chullin had killed 
the wizard Calatin and his twenty sons. Calatin’s wife 


96 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


bore three daughters after his death. These girls were 
reared to be witches, so that they might take revenge upon 
Cu Chullin. Lugaid, son of Curoi, and Ere, son of 
Cairbre Naifer, hated him because he had slain their 
fathers. Medb raised another army to go into Ulster and 
these enemies of Cu Chullin joined her. Conchobar 
knew that the raid was directed against Cu Chullin, so 
he sent for the hero to come to Emain Macha. 

The three daughters of Calatin flew to Emain and sur¬ 
rounded the house, making the sounds of battle to lure him 
out to his death. The imitated shouts of warriors, clangs 
of weapons, and groans of the dying. Inside the palace 
the druids and the musicians and Emer, his wife, tried 
to keep Cu Chullin from rushing out to join the imaginary 
fight. They held him by force, and finally persuaded 
him that it was an enchantment that he heard. During 
the night the druid took him away and put him in 
Deaf Valley, where no sound could penetrate, but even 
here the witches came and made the yells of battle. Again 
the druid saved Cu Chullin from going forth. 

' Then one of the witches came in the form of a crow and 
taunted Cu Chullin for allowing his estates to be ruined, 
and another came in the form of a beautiful woman and 
urged him to go forth lest he should lose his renown as 
a warrior. At this he rose and took up his weapons. 


97 



HARPER AND BARD 


As Cu Chullin went out to battle he was met with evil 
omens. His grey steed refused to be yoked to the chariot. 
As he passed along a plain he met three old hags cooking 
a dog. 

“Come and eat with us,” they said. 

“I shall not visit you,” he replied. For it was forbidden 
for him to eat the flesh of his name animal. 

“Cu Chullin eats only in the homes of the rich,” sneered 
one of the hags. 

Then for fear of offending he sat down and ate. When 
he tasted the flesh his left side became paralyzed. 

He came to a ford and there he saw a red woman on 
the edge of the river washing a chariot and armor. When 
she lowered her hand the river became red with blood. 

“What is it that you do?” asked Cu Chullin. 

“I wash the harness of a king who will perish,” she said. 

When he came to his own lands he found the enemy 
drawn up so closely that their shields made one solid wall. 
He fought them all day until the field was covered with 
parts of men’s bodies, as a meadow after a snow storm 
is covered with snowflakes. Then a druid came to him 
and asked for a spear. It was unlucky to refuse the 
request of a druid. Cu Chullin threw a spear at the 
druid so hard that it passed through his body and killed 
seven men besides. Lugaid picked up the spear, for it 


98 



THE CU CHULLIN CYCLE 


was said that the spear of Cu Chullin would kill kings. 
Then Lugaid cast the spear back at Cu Chullin and it 
killed his faithful charioteer, Laeg. 

“Now must I be both a warrior and a charioteer,” said 
Cu Chullin. 

A second druid came and asked for a spear. The hero 
cast it at him as he had the other. It passed through his 
body and killed eighteen men besides. Ere picked it up 
and cast it back at Cu Chullin, striking the grey horse 
of Macha. Cu Chullin took a fond farewell of his horse, 
which galloped off to plunge beneath the waves of the lake 
from whence he had come. 

A third druid came to Cu Chullin and asked for a spear. 
A third time Cu Chullin cast it, and it passed through 
the druid’s body and killed twenty-seven men besides. 
Lugaid picked it up and hurled it at Cu Chullin. It struck 
him and passed through his body. The black horse of 
Sainglenn broke away from the chariot and never stopped 
running until he, too, plunged beneath the waves of his 
lake home. Cu Chullin lay dying alone in his chariot. 

As he felt death come upon him he was thirsty and 
said to his enemies, “I would fain go as far as that lake 
to drink from it.” 

“We give thee leave,” they said, “provided that you 
come to us again.” 


99 



HARPER AND BARD 


“I will bid you come for me,” said Cu Chullin, “if I 
do not return to you myself. 

He dragged himself to the little lake near-by to drink. 
On the shore of the lake was a pillar of stone. With 
the last of his strength he tied himself with his girdle 
upright against the stone. He did not wish to die either 
sitting or lying; it was standing that he wished to meet 
death. No one dared go near him until a raven came 
and perched on his shoulder so that they knew that he 
was dead. 

p p 

Other additions to the tale say that Conall Cernach 
revenged the death of Cu Chullin, recovered his head 
and returned it to Emer. She caused a wide grave to be 
dug to hold them both, for she would not live after him. 

Other sagas of the Red Branch are told, more than a 
hundred of them, but there is not space to retell them here. 


K 


100 




it 

. ■ 



FIVE 


THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


TALES OF FINN AND THE FIAN 
These are the things that were dear to Finn — 

The din of battle, the banquet’s glee, 

The bay of the hounds through the rough glen ringing, 
And the blackbird singing in Letter Lee. 

Oisins poem 

T RADITION tells that about two hundred years 
after Cu Chullin died beside the standing stone, 
there ruled at Tara as high king Cormac mac Art, 
grandson of that Conn of the Hundred Battles who is 
a familiar figure in the later tales of the Red Branch. 
According to the Four Masters, Cormac came to the 
throne in A. D. 227. At this time there were in Ireland 
two distinct classes of people. The descendants of Mil, 
or Milesians, were the rulers of the land, but they occupied 
only one-third of it. The remainder of the island was 
in the possession of subject races, many of them de¬ 
scendants of the ancient Fir Bolg. 


101 




HARPER AND BARD 


A band of these vassals fought with Queen Medb on 
the great cattle raid of Cuailnge, and there are other 
mentions of them in the sagas of the Red Branch. In 
Connacht the subject races were called the Clanna Morna; 
in Leinster, the Galioins; and in Tara, the Luagni. 

It was the custom of the Milesians to exact heavy tribute 
from their subjects. One of the demands was for armed 
levees. Since freemen could not be forced to serve for 
more than a few weeks each year, and then not at harvest 
or seeding time, the armies must come from the vassal 
tribes. The demand was met by the formation of a 
distinct warrior class which was compelled to be ready for 
military service at any time. These bands of professional 
soldiers were called fiana. From November to May they 
were quartered with the landowners. They lived on their 
war plunder and served the king by protecting the land 
from invasion, by collecting taxes, and by carrying out 
the royal decrees. From May to November they lived 
in the open, hunting and fishing. Thus the Milesian 
high kings had at all times a trained standing army. 

In time the chiefs of the bands of fiana came to be 
almost as powerful as the kings whose servants they were. 
Stories grew up about these leaders. Goll mac Morna 
was the great hero among the Clanna Morna. Finn mac 
Cumhaill led the Galioin. 


102 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


The oldest preserved Ossianic stories take the form of 
poems in which some hero of the fiana—usually Finn or 
his son Oisin—is represented as celebrating the exploits 
of his band. As the centuries pass Oisin (Ossian) be¬ 
comes more and more prominent as a singer until, in 
most of the later ballads, he is the official poet and 
singer of Finn’s band. During the latter part of the 
eighteenth century he came to be thought of as the most 
ancient bard of the Celtic people—a sort of Celtic Homer, 
who had composed and sung by the power of primitive, 
untutored genius. But not all the stories about the fiana 
are in verse; many are in prose, some of the prose nar¬ 
ratives running to considerable length. Since the Middle 
Ages, tales and ballads of Finn and his companions 
seem to have flourished, especially in the south of Ireland 
and in Scotland. The whole body of material is known 
as the Finn cycle, or, more commonly, the Ossianic cycle 
of Gaelic literature. 

The stories are more numerous than the sagas of the 
Ulster cycle, and they lack the sweep and dignity of the 
earlier epic. They are more artificial; the subjects are often 
trivial; and there is a more modem tone of many tales. 

During the period between A. D. 400 and A. D. 700 
the Finn stories spread by worth of mouth. About A. D. 
900 the conquering Milesians adopted them into the chro- 


103 



HARPER AND BARD 


nology that was being built up by the scribes to show that 
the sons of Mil had been rulers of Ireland since prehistoric 
times. Because of the long period during which the tales 
were transcribed by oral tradition alone, there are often 
many versions of the same story. The tales were modern¬ 
ized to fit each succeeding generation. 

The Finn epic probably originated in the account of 
a blood-feud between a chieftain of one clan and the 
members of another clan who had slain his father. Such 
feuds are common among primitive people, and similar 
tales of revenge are widespread in popular literature. 

The Birth of Finn 

Cumhall, son of Tredhorn, was leader of the fiana of 
Leinster. He had carried off, against her father’s will, 
Muirne of the Smooth Neck, the daughter of Teigue. 
Her grandfather was Nuadha, of the Tuatha De 
Danann. Cumhall had been leader of the fiana under 
Conn of the Hundred Battles, but he had quarreled 
with the king, and the hero Goll mac Morna had been 
recalled from Scotland to head the royal army. 

Goll and Conn made war against Cumhall. In the 
battle of Cnucha, near the present city of Dublin, Cum¬ 
hall was slain. Thus it was that the blood-feud began, 
to be carried on by a baby not yet bom to Muime. 


104 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


When the time was come for the baby to be born, the 
king gave orders that if it was a boy it was to be killed 
at once; if it was a girl it should be spared. Twelve 
watchers sat beside the bed of Muime. The child was 
a girl, and the watchers departed to bring the news to 
the king and to eat and drink after their long watch. 
But when they were all gone Muirne called to Bodman, 
an old nurse who had attended her. When the nurse 
came, Muirne had a little boy in her arms. 

“Take him away,” she begged, “before they kill him.” 

Bodman gave the baby a strip of pork to keep him 
quiet and hid him in the pig’s hut until morning. Then 
she took him under her mantle and went to her brother’s 
house. Her brother was a carpenter. She begged him 
to make her a hut in the forest near the hill of Almhain 
in Leinster, which belonged to Muirne as an inheritance 
from her grandfather. The man was curious about what 
his sister was hiding under her mantle, but she would 
not tell him. When he had finished the house she 
called to him. 

“What is this?” said she, and pointed to the ground 
near the hut. Her brother bent over to see what she 
pointed to and she cut off his head with his own ax. 

The baby’s mother had said that his name should be 
Demne, but as he grew older his hair was so fair and his 


105 



HARPER AND BARD 


eyes so blue and his skin so white that he was called Finn, 
meaning “Fair.” She taught him to run swiftly by chas¬ 
ing him with a whip up the mountain. When he slowed 
so that she caught him, she struck him with the whip. 

While he was still a baby and unable to walk, he 
choked to death a cat that tried to take his strip of 
pork from him. One day a greyhound smelled the 
meat and came to steal it. The baby seized him by the 
jaws and tore him in two. 

Only once did Finn’s mother come to see him, for 
she was afraid to disclose his hiding place. That was 
when he was six years old and she had been married 
to the king of Kerry. She found her son asleep in the 
hunting booth; and she held him gently in her arms 
and made a little song, beginning: 

“Sleep, my little son, sleep with the slumber of 
pleasure” 

When she had finished her song she commanded 
Bodman to care for him until he was fit for the chase 
and ready to be leader of the Fian, as his father had 
been before him. He lived in the forest another year. 
e p 

The Boyish Exploits of Finn 

The first chase of Finn was a duck, which he killed 
by throwing a spear at her as she swam on the lake near 


106 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


his hut. On another day, when he was seven years old. 
he went down on the plain near a palace and there found 
some boys hurling. Finn joined in the game and defeated 
all of them. The next day when he came they hurled 
their spears at him to kill him, but he dodged them all. 
When he came again the boys were swimming in the 
lake. They defied him to come in with them, but he 
jumped in and held nine of them under the water until 
they were drowned. 

At another time he chased a herd of deer and brought 
back two of them to the lodge. After that he would 
catch deer whenever there was need. Then Bodman 
knew that it was time that Finn went forth to learn more 
of the world. Fie took military service under two kings 
to learn deeds of arms. In a fight with Liath Luachra 
he regained a bag of jewels that had been his father’s. 
These he gave to the old men of the Fian, who had 
served under his father. 

But Finn knew that he could not be a member of the 
Fian without knowledge of poetry. Therefore he sought 
out Finnegas, who dwelt on the river Boyne. Now 
Finnegas had watched beside the pool of Feic for seven 
years hoping to catch the salmon that was in the pool, 
for whoever ate the salmon would have all knowledge. 
While Finn was his pupil, Finnegas caught the salmon 


107 



HARPER AND BARD 


and gave it to Finn to cook, but with the warning that 
he was to eat no bite of it. When Finn went to turn the 
fish on the spit he burned his thumb and thrust it into 
his mouth to ease the pain. Instantly he had all 
knowledge. From that time forth whenever Finn wanted 
knowledge all that he needed to do was to place his 
thumb in his mouth, and everything was revealed to him. 

From Finnegas the boy learned the twelve books of 
poetry. At the end of his studies he made a lay to prove 
his skill, beginning: 

“May! It is a pleasing time , most excellent in color ” 
p p 

By the time he was grown, Finn had made himself 
leader of the Fian, a position he held until his death 
when he was very old. In Finn’s time a man needed 
to pass severe tests in order to become a member of the 
band. He needed to be versed in the twelve books of 
poetry. He was placed in the ground up to his waist 
with only his shield and a hazel stick as long as his 
forearm. With these he must defend himself when 
nine warriors hurled their spears at him. If he was 
hurt he was not taken into the Fian. He must have his 
hair braided and then he must run through the forests 
of Ireland with the warriors of the Fian after him. If 
he was caught, or if he cracked a twig under his foot, or 


108 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


if his hair was disturbed, he was not taken into the Fian. 
He had to be able to jump over a stick level with his 
brow, go under a stick the height of his knee, and remove 
a thorn from his foot, without slacking his pace. 

The members of the Fian also had certain taboos. 
They must never receive a marriage portion with a 
wife; they must never offer violence to any woman; they 
must never refuse anyone anything they possessed; if a 
Fenian was killed his parents might not collect any 
blood-fine for his death. 

They fought on foot or on horseback, not in chariots, 
as the Red Branch warriors had done. Dogs enter largely 
into the tales, for during half of the year the warriors 
of the Fian were hunters. Finn had two great hounds, 
Bran and Scolan, which he loved dearly. One of the 
great griefs of his life was when he killed Bran by 
accident. Finn regained his father’s shield, the shield 
made from the wood of the hazel tree that had died 
when the head of Balor of the Evil Eye was placed in 
its branches. After the last great battle, when Finn 
was slain and the power of the fiana broken forever, a 
swineherd burned the shield on the battlefield. 

Finn built a palace on the hill of Almhain, where he 
lived in the winter months. Here he had a great retinue 
of servants and a large family, for he had married early 


109 



HARPER AND BARD 


and often. During the summer months he hunted with 
the warriors of the Fian. Each day they hunted in the 
forest. As they killed the game they sent it to a cooking 
place, where certain of their band prepared holes in the 
ground and lined them with hot stones. In these holes 
the game was cooked. At evening the hunters returned 
to the cooking places, bathed themselves, ate, and made 
their beds ready for sleep. In many parts of Ireland 
today the Irish point out bare places that they call the 
“cooking places of the Fiana.” 

Finn made peace with Goll and with Cormac, who 
had succeeded to the kingship. Among the members 
of the Fian were Diarmaid, Caoilte mac Ronan, Conon 
Maoil, Oisin, Finn’s son, and Oscar, his grandson. A 
tale was told of the birth of Oisin. 

P p 

The Birth of Oisin 

One day as Finn was hunting, his dogs started a fawn, 
which ran toward his dwelling. They left the other 
hunters behind. Then the fawn lay down, while the two 
hounds began to play around her and to lick her face. 
She followed Finn home, still playing with the dogs. 

That night Finn awoke and saw beside his bed a 
woman who was fairer than any woman he had ever seen. 

“I am Sadb,” she told him, “and I was the fawn you 


110 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


chased today. I am under an enchantment because I 
would not marry the druid of the fairies, who is black 
and ugly. It was revealed to me that if I might enter 
thy house I would be freed of the enchantment.” 

And Finn loved Sadb and made her his wife. For 
many months he never left her side. She loved him 
with a love that was as true as his for her. But word 
came to Finn that the Northmen were invading the land, 
and he remembered a saying of Goll mac Morna,—“A 
man lives after his life, but not after his honor.” Then 
he went out and drove the enemy away from the shores 
of Ireland. But when he returned to Almhain, Sadb was 
gone, and his men had only a story to tell of an en¬ 
chanter who had come in the form of Finn and lured 
her outside the gates and turned her into a deer. 

Finn searched for Sadb for seven years, but at last he 
gave up all hope of finding her again. Then one day as 
he was hunting, his dogs found a naked boy under a 
tree. They took the lad home, and when he had learned 
to talk he told Finn that the only parent he had known 
was a gentle deer and that one day a dark man had 
come and struck the deer with a hazel wand so that she 
went away with him. 

Finn knew that the boy must be his son and that 
Sadb had been taken back to the fairy world. He 


111 



HARPER AND BARD 


named the boy Oisin, which means Little Fawn. Oisin 
became a famous warrior. He was even more famous 
as a poet and singer; so that when men tell a tale of 
the Fian they end by saying: “Thus sang the bard Oisin, 
son of Finn.” 

During the forty years that Finn was leader of the 
Fian many brave and noble deeds were done. Invaders 
were driven out of Ireland, battles were fought, and 
adventures in the fairy world befell the heroes. If the 
stories of Finn and his warriors were all collected they 
would fill many large volumes. At one time Finn’s 
band captured King Cormac himself, and the king would 
have suffered a dreadful death if Finn had not saved him. 
They forced the high king to go under the yoke, but Finn 
saved his honor by going beneath the yoke with him. They 
pursued the Gilla Dacker and his horse into fairyland and 
brought back the fourteen warriors that he had carried 
away. They placed a standing stone cut with letters of 
Ogam over the grave of the fair giantess who was killed 
while under their protection. They helped to rescue Finn 
when a fairy had turned him into an old man. 

It was said of Finn that he gave gold away as if it were 
the leaves of the forest trees, and silver as if it were the 
waves of the sea. Always he was generous to a foe, save 


112 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


to Diarmaid, who had once been his friend but who had 
eloped with Finn’s affianced wife. This story comes at 
the end of Finn’s life, so that it will be told later. 

One of the most popular tales of how Finn repulsed 
foreign invaders deals with Midac, son of Colga, King 
of Lochlann. 

The Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees 
The king of Lochlann, or Scandinavia, whose name 
was Colga of the Hard Weapons, invaded Ireland to 
take it from Cormac mac Art. Finn and his hosts met 
the king of Lochlann in battle, and when that contest was 
over there was no chief or noble of that army left alive 
save Midac, the youngest son of Colga. Him Finn let 
live, and brought him up in his own household. 

When Midac was grown to manhood, Finn made 
him one of the Fian, and the young prince hunted and 
fought with them. But he never lost a chance to become 
aquainted with the palaces and fortresses of the Irish, and 
with their ways of making war. At last Conon Maoil 
became suspicious of Midac, so that he advised Finn to 
give the prince a place of his own. 

This counsel seemed good to Finn and his companions. 
They gave Midac his choice of land. He chose the land 
near the mouth of the river Shannon, which he received, 


113 



HARPER AND BARD 


together with cattle and wealth of all kinds. For more 
than fourteen years no man of the Fian was invited into 
the fine palaces that he built on either side of the river 
Shannon. Then one day Conan Maoil taunted Midac: 

“If Finn and his Fian have never feasted with me,” 
said Midac, “it is none of my fault; for my house has 
never been without a banquet fit for him, or for any king 
or chief. He should not have waited for an invitation, 
since I am one of the Fian and brought up in his own 
household. However, I have now a feast prepared at 
the Palace of the Quicken Trees, which is near this hill; 
and it is to this that I wish you to come.” 

This invitation Finn accepted. So Midac went to pre¬ 
pare for his guests. It was agreed that Oisin and five other 
chiefs should wait on the hill till Finn and his companions 
returned. When they drew near the palace they were 
amazed at its size and beauty. It stood on a little plain 
surrounded with quicken trees all covered with scarlet 
berries. Near the palace was a pathway leading down 
to the ford. The other palace was across the ford. 

Finn and his companions went into the banquet hall, 
where a great feast was spread. As they sat down on 
the soft couches, Midac came in and looked at them 
without a word, then went out and closed the doors. 
And suddenly the warriors saw that what they had 


114 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


thought was a splendid hall was only a hut and that 
instead of the soft couches they were sitting on the bare, 
cold earth. They tried to rise, but they could not 
move. Finn put his thumb in his mouth, and, when 
he had withdrawn it, groaned aloud. 

“Alas,” he said, “I grieve that my death is near, and 
the death of these dear companions. For fourteen years 
has Midac plotted against us, and now I can see no 
escape. In the palace across the river is an army of 
foreigners, whom Midac has brought hither for our de¬ 
struction. We may not be released until the blood of the 
three kings who are with them is sprinkled on this clay.” 

Then the warriors prepared for death and sang the 
war cry of the Fian in a slow sad strain. 

Oisin, waiting on the hill, was alarmed when he heard 
no news of his father, so that he sent two of his men to 
see what was the matter. As these two came near the 
Palace of the Quicken Trees, they heard the war cry 
and wondered to hear it so slow and sad. 

Finn heard them talking outside the door and called 
to them. “Do not come inside the door,” he said, “for 
fear you may fall under our enchantment.” 

He urged them to flee from the palace to save them¬ 
selves, but they refused. When he saw that the young 
men would not leave the Palace of the Quicken Trees 


115 



HARPER AND BARD 


while he was in danger, Finn sent them to guard the 
ford, which was so narrow that one man could keep it. 

For three days then, the young man defended the ford 
against the hosts of Midac. Held back by their resist¬ 
ance, the foreigners did not enter the Palace of the 
Quicken Trees where Finn and his companions sat fixed 
to the cold clay floor, almost fainting with hunger and 
thirst. The third night the three kings rose up from the 
table where they had been feasting in the palace across 
the ford and took their swords to end the combats at 
the river and to put an end to Finn and his companions. 
Diarmaid met them at the ford, remembered what Finn 
had told him, and cut off their heads. With the dripping 
heads he ran to the Palace of the Quicken Trees and 
sprinkled the clay floor with the blood. Then Finn and 
his warriors sprang to their feet with exulting cries. 

But the danger was not yet over. Finn and his com¬ 
panions would have no strength to enter into the combat 
until daybreak, so that Diarmaid and Fatha, tired as 
they were, must hold the ford until morning. 

To the palace across the Shannon word was brought 
that the three kings had fallen. Then all the foreigners 
armed themselves and marched to the ford. But the 
way was so narrow that they must come one at a time, 
and Diarmaid on the right and Fatha on the left parried 


116 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


and thrust and beat them back until the day broke. 
During the night Finn and his companions had eaten 
and recovered from the enchantment. As the first light 
of dawn appeared in the east there rose a great shout 
behind the young men who, desperately weary, still held 
the pass. Finn and Goll and the others ran down the 
slope to the battle. Even then the fight seemed to go 
against the Fian until Oscar, best loved of all the youth¬ 
ful champions, killed the king of the foreigners. Then 
the hosts of Midac broke and fled back to their ships 
and sailed home to tell of their defeat and slaughter. 

It is impossible to tell of all the adventures and battles, 
the excursions into fairyland, and the voyages oversea, 
that made Finn famous for hundreds of years and gave 
the shanachies, or professional story-tellers, material for 
hundreds of tales and ballads. But there is one tale 
which, because it is the best of them all, should be retold. 
It is the account of Finn’s enmity against one who had 
been his friend. It is the tale, too, of a wilful woman, 
e e 

The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Graine 
When Finn was an old man he had no wife, and he 
fixed his desire on the fair young daughter of Cormac 
mac Art, the high king. Graine was the name of the 


117 



HARPER AND BARD 


maid, who was more fair than any maid in Ireland. She 
had refused to wed any king or prince in the land, but 
when Finn sent to her father desiring her for a wife, Cor- 
mac dared not refuse. Graine, when she saw Finn, said, 
“A wonder it is to me that Finn did not ask me as a 
wife for Oisin, or for Oscar, rather than for himself, 
for he is older than even you, my father.” 

When Finn came to claim Graine, Cormac made a 
great feast at Tara. At the feast was Diarmaid, hand¬ 
somest of all the warriors of the Fian. It was not to be 
wondered at that Graine fell in love with him when she 
first saw him, for on his forehead was a love spot, which 
no woman could resist. It had been placed upon his 
brow by a fairy he had seen in an enchanted dwelling. 

During the course of the feast, Graine prepared a 
great cup of wine into which she mixed a sleeping potion. 
This she sent by her maid to Finn and to all the warriors 
of the Fian save Diarmaid and Oisin. As they drank 
they fell into heavy slumber. Then Graine went to Oisin 
saying: “Wilt thou receive courtship from me?” 

“That will I not,” replied Oisin, “nor from any 
woman that is betrothed to Finn.” 

Then the princess went to Diarmaid and asked him 
the same question, but he refused in the same words that 
Oisin had used. 


118 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


“I put you under heavy taboo, Diarmaid, that you 
take me out of Tara this night,” she said, “for I have 
loved you since I saw you long ago win a hurling match 
under my window.” 

Diarmaid struggled against his fate. He begged her 
to change her mind, but she would not. His friends 
urged him not to seek to break the taboo that she had 
laid upon him. With tears Diarmaid took leave of his 
former companions, for he knew that when Finn found 
what he had done they must needs hunt him like a wild 
beast. Outside the walls of Tara he urged Graine to 
turn back, but instead of that she led him to where she 
had caused a chariot and horses to be concealed. That 
night they camped near the river Shannon. 

When Finn awoke he was filled with a mighty rage. 
He gathered his warriors together and set out on the 
trail of the lovers. Each day he found the hut they had 
used for shelter, the bed of rushes and the remains of 
the meal they had eaten. To this day there are all over 
Ireland flat rocks that are called the beds of Diarmaid 
and Graine. 

For sixteen years Finn pursued Diarmaid around Ire¬ 
land. Often his warriors urged him to leave the chase for 
matters of more importance, but when he remembered 
the beauty of Graine, jealousy consumed him and he 


119 



HARPER AND BARD 


urged them on. As the friends of Diarmaid among 
the Fian had no wish to see him killed, they contrived 
to send him warnings of their approach. Sometimes 
they sent Finn’s own dog Bran, who loved Diarmaid. 
Once they had Fearghoir, whose shouts could be heard 
over three cantreds, call a warning. Once Finn came 
close enough to the lovers to see Diarmaid give three 
kisses to Graine, and Finn swore that Diarmaid should 
pay for those kisses with his head. It was at this time 
that Angus Og, the fairy foster-father of Diarmaid, saved 
Graine by carrying her off under his mantle, and Diar¬ 
maid saved himself by vaulting on his spear over the 
heads of Finn’s army. 

Time after time Finn sent great armies after Diarmaid, 
but to no avail, for he met and killed them all. He slew 
the three deadly hounds loosed upon him, and bound 
the three green chiefs so tightly that they died in their 
bonds before Finn could loosen them. 

A quicken tree with magic berries stood in the center 
of the cantred of Dubhros, guarded by a foul and 
hideous giant called Searbhan Lochlannach. No one 
dared approach the giant, for he could be killed only by 
three blows of the iron club that was fastened to his 
belt. Finn wanted some of the berries to eat, for it was 
said that they gave youth to all who ate of them, and 


120 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


now Finn was old. Graine also wished to eat of the 
berries. Finn commanded the warriors of the Clanna 
Moma to get some of the berries for him. As they 
passed through the forest toward the cantred of Dubhros 
they were overcome by Diarmaid, but when he knew 
what they had come for he cut their bonds and went with 
them to the magic tree. There, after a terrible fight, 
Diarmaid snatched the giant’s club from his belt and 
with three blows dashed out his brains. Then Graine 
and the men of Clana Morna ate their fill of the rich 
fruit. When they were full Diarmaid picked a load of 
the berries for them to take to Finn. But when they 
came to him, Finn smelled the smell of Diarmaid on the 
berries and would not taste them. He gathered together 
an army of hired soldiers with the promise that if they 
killed Diarmaid he would make them members of the 
Fian. Oscar and Oisin went with them to the magic 
quicken tree. 

Diarmaid and Graine were asleep in the bed of the giant 
in the top of the tree when Finn with his hired soldiers 
came and camped at the foot in the shade, for the day was 
hot. Finn sent for a chess board and said to Oisin, “I 
would play a game with thee.” 

The game was played with great skill and cunning 
until Oisin had but one move to make to turn the game 


121 



HARPER AND BARD 


against Finn. Diarmaid, from his bed in the top of the 
quicken, could see the move that was to be made and 
threw a berry at the man to be moved. Oisin moved 
that man and turned the game against Finn. It was not 
long until the game was in the same state a second time; 
again Diarmaid threw a berry and struck the man to be 
moved. A third time it happened and a third time 
Diarmaid showed Oisin the move, so that this time 
Oisin won the game. 

Finn knew all the time that Diarmaid was in the bed 
in the top of the tree. Now he called the hired soldiers 
and made them take hands around the tree, warning 
them on pain of death not to let Diarmaid through. It 
was shown to Angus what a strait his foster-son was in, 
and he came to the rescue of Diarmaid without the knowl¬ 
edge of Finn. When one of the warriors climbed up 
into the tree, Angus flung him down with a stroke of 
his foot. As the man fell, Angus made him look like 
Diarmaid, so that the hired soldiers waiting at the foot 
of the tree rushed in and cut off his head. When he was 
dead the warrior took his own form again. This hap¬ 
pened for nine times, until Finn was full of anguish for 
all the warriors who were killed in the shape of Diarmaid. 

Angus would have saved them both, but Diarmaid 
refused to go under his mantle, and as he had done before, 


122 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


sent Graine with Angus. Then Diarmaid called to 
Finn, “I will go down to thee, O Finn, and I will deal 
slaughter upon thee and upon thy people, for I am certain 
that they wish to work me death, and I have no friend 
nor companion any more in the world. But I swear, O 
Finn, that thou shalt not get me for nothing.” 

“Give him mercy and forgiveness,” begged Oscar, the 
grandson of Finn. 

“I will not,” declared Finn, “to all eternity, and he 
shall not get peace or rest forever till he give me satis¬ 
faction for every slight that he has put upon me.” 

Then Oscar, best loved of all the youths of the Fian, 
took the side of Diarmaid against them all. “I pledge 
the word of a true warrior,” he cried, “that I will not 
suffer the Fian of Erin to give him cut or wound, and 
I take his body under the protection of my valor.” 

When Diarmaid heard the brave words of Oscar he 
rose and sprang far out from the tree, beyond the reach 
of the soldiers of Finn, and Oscar went with him. From 
that day forth these two fought together against the 
Fian. But at the end of sixteen years, Cormac, the high 
king, gave to Finn another of his fair daughters that 
he might let Diarmaid be, so that they made peace with 
each other. During the time of that peace Graine bore 
to Diarmaid four sons and one daughter. 


123 



HARPER AND BARD 


After many years had passed and Diarmaid and 
Graine were prosperous in their own dwelling, they made 
a great feast for Finn and for King Cormac, the father 
of Graine. During the days of that feasting the war¬ 
riors of the Fian went out to hunt a wild boar. Now 
Diarmaid was under a taboo never to hunt a boar, and 
after the hunt was well started Finn reminded him of 
his taboo. 

“Now, by my word,” said Diarmaid, “it is to slay 
me that you have brought me on this hunt, O Finn; and 
if I am here fated to die, I have no power to shun it.” 

They tracked the wild boar throughout the woods 
until they found him; and in that hunting, the boar 
turned upon Diarmaid, whose weapons made no wound 
in the beast. The animal leaped and struck Diarmaid 
and ripped open his body. 

Then Finn came and taunted him. “It likes me well 
to see thee in this plight, O Diarmaid,” he said, “and I 
grieve that the women of Erin are not gazing upon 
thee, for thy beauty is turned to ugliness.” 

“Nevertheless, it is in thy power to heal me,” said Diar¬ 
maid, “for whoever will drink water carried in thy hands 
will be healed of any hurt.” 

But Finn said, “Thou hast not deserved of me that I 
should give thee that drink.” 


124 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


Diarmaid pleaded with Finn, recalling to him the 
many times he had saved his chieftain’s life, in the days 
before either of them had seen Graine. Oisin and Oscar 
added their pleadings to those of the dying man. At 
last Finn went to the spring and took up some water 
in his joined hands. But before he reached Diarmaid 
he let the water slip through his fingers. A second time 
he lifted the water, but the thought of Graine came 
before him, and he opened his hands. Then said Oscar, 
“I swear that if you do not bring the water speedily, 
O Finn, there shall but one of us leave this hill.” 

At that Finn brought the water, but before he reached 
the place Diarmaid was dead. 

It is told further that the four children of Diarmaid 
and Graine made war upon Finn in revenge for their 
father’s death. In that war the daughter was killed. 
Finn was afraid of the wrath of the sons of Diarmaid, 
so that he went to Graine and plied her with soft words 
until he won her to his will, and married her as he had 
wished to do in the beginning. Then he brought her 
to the Fian. When they saw her coming lovingly with 
Finn, she who had been the cause of all the sorrow and 
the death of Diarmaid, the warriors of the Fian gave 
a mighty shout of mockery and derision, so that she 
bowed her head in shame. 


125 



HARPER AND BARD 


“We are sure, O Finn,” said Oisin, “that thou wilt 
keep Graine well from this time forward.” 

Then Graine persuaded her sons to make peace with 
her husband, and Graine and Finn lived together. 
v v 

The power of the Fian was broken, and Finn and 
his grandson Oscar were killed at the battle of Gabhra, 
which was fought, according to the Annals of the Four 
Masters, in A. D. 283. In that great battle Oscar was 
slain by Cairbre, son of Cormac, the high king, for the 
forces of the king were allied against the Fian. Finn 
came to weep over the death of his most beloved grand¬ 
son and was killed by the sons of Uirgrenn, in revenge 
for the fact that Finn had killed their father long before. 

The Clanna Morna were allied with the high king’s 
forces in that battle because Finn had driven Goll, chief of 
the Clanna Morna, out of the Fian, and had killed him. 

According to tradition, Oisin and Caeilte lived on in 
Ireland for more than a century. When St. Patrick came 
to the island he met the two old men and converted 
them to Christianity. They told him all the tales of 
Finn and the lost glories of the Fian. St. Patrick was 
much enthralled by the grandeur of the tales, so that he 
kept the old men with him and had their stories written 
down by his scribes. The tales told by Oisin and Caeilte 


126 



THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 


to St. Patrick are gathered into two collections, both 
called the “Colloquy of the Ancients.” 

There is another tale of Oisin which says that he was 
taken away by Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of 
the king in the Land of Youth. He lived with her in 
the Land of Youth for three hundred years, but the time 
seemed to him like three weeks. At last Oisin was 
homesick for Ireland and for a sight of the Fian; so he 
begged the princess to let him return on a visit. She 
gave him the same white horse to ride which had car¬ 
ried them both to the Land of Youth, but warned him 
that he must not dismount from it. 

When Oisin came to Ireland and called for the Fian, 
there was no answer. The land seemed overgrown with 
brambles, and the men that he saw were small and weak. 
When he spoke to them, asking for news of the Fian, 
they said that they had heard old tales of the warriors 
of the Fian, but that the race had long since passed from 
the earth. Then Oisin rode to the site of his father’s 
palace at Almhain and found only ruins covered with 
weeds. 

As he turned to go away he saw a crowd of men trying 
to lift a broad flat stone. One of them came to him 
and said, “Come and help us, thou mighty hero, for thou 
art a man of strength.” 


127 



HARPER AND BARD 


As Oisin leaned down to move the stone with one 
hand, his saddle girths burst and he rolled on the 
ground. Instantly the white horse shook himself and 
vanished into the clouds, leaving Oisin a feeble old 
man lying on the ground. The men lifted him up and 
asked who he was. 

“I was Oisin, son of Finn,” said the old man, peering 
about with dim eyes, “and I pray ye tell me where he 
now dwells, for I have been to his dwelling on the hill of 
Almhain and there all is desolation, and I have neither 
seen him nor heard his hunting horn from the eastern 
to the western sea.” 

The men about marveled to hear him speak of things 
so long past. They took him to St. Patrick who listened 
to his tales and had them written down by his scribes. 

Although most of the stories say that Finn was killed 
by the sons of Uirgrenn at the battle of Gabhra, there are 
others who claim that he and the heroes of the Fian still 
sleep in the hills of Ireland. When they are needed, 
say the shanachies, they will come forth to ride again over 
the plains of Erin shouting the war cry of the Fian. 

K 


128 




JUN 1 


1931 

































































































































